Pairing Fitness and Social Media into one Mobile App: The Fitsy Prototype

A new fitness era is here. Whether it be the recent rise in CrossFit gyms across the nation, the online traction being gained by numerous fitness icons such as Elliot Hulse and Ido Portal, or the various movement retreats spawning across the globe, it’s apparent that fitness today is experiencing a social revolution. Even more so, however, is the social media wave which, over the past decade with apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Whatsapp, has flowed through the fabrics of society and has integrated itself into the lives of all.

Now you may ask, “What would be more beautiful than combining the seamless integration of social media with the exciting advances that are happening now with modern Fitness?” Well, we’ve asked ourselves this same question and in the end, we were stumped as well. With hopes high, we searched far and wide for a mobile app that would satisfy our wonderful vision for social fitness. When none was found, we used what we had learned from our quest and have created a new, revolutionary prototype for an app that fuses social media with fitness; we call it Fitsy.

Our goal for this concept was to create an app that not only introduces the user’s to new and exciting exercise and fitness options, but also allows them to share their love for fitness with their friends in a fun and seamless way.

Our app has five main pages: the friend’s page, the setting’s page, the exercise page, notifications, and lastly the challenges page.

Upon opening the app, the challenges page is the first page to which the user is redirected. Represented by the sweat droplet in the center of the menu bar, the challenges page has two subviewing screens that allow the user to see both the challenges they’ve recieved and the challenges they have sent to their friends.

From left to right, these four screens are the “your challenges” where you can view challenges sent to you, “sent challenges” where you can view the status and descriptions of challenges you’ve sent, the video screen which allows you to record yourself doing the challenge, and the individual challenge screen which lets you and your challenger view and comment on the completed challenge.

On the “your challenges” sub page, the challenges are categorized as either opened or unopened, represented by the green checked boxes and the red boxes, respectively. Users can open red challenges from which they are redirected to a videos page. Presented with a description of the challenge, the viewer can either choose to start the recording and thus the challenge, choose to click on the exercise icon from which they will be redirected to appropriate exercise description pages, or they can choose to hit back an complete the challenge at a later time.

Looking at the “sent challenges” sub page, users can view challenges that they have sent to friends as well as their status as to whether they were completed or not. Pending challenges indicate incomplete challenges, closed purple boxes indicate challenges that you have yet to open and watch, and open boxes indicate challenges that you have opened and viewed. Upon clicking on a challenge, the user is redirected to the specific challenge page where they can view the challenge video, leave comments to their friends, or click on the exercise button to view information on specific exercises involved.

The challenges can range from fun and exciting to wild and silly. They help add new life to the average workout routine. It is through the challenge pages where users can communicate with their friends and access the main components of the application.

Next comes the exercise page. It is here where users can gain information on specific exercises in regards to proper performance and preparation. organized into specific categories, exercises offer direct links to information pages where viewers can watch instructional videos on exercises and read descriptions. This list of exercises is continuously updated to stay up to date with the most recent advances in fitness.

The friends pages contain 2 subpages where users can view their friends as well as add new friends. From the “my friends” subpage, users can view their friends and send challenges to them directly. Upon clicking on a friend, one is redirected to the “send challenge” page where they are presented with the list of challenges that they can send. On the “all people” subpage, users can search for friends by typing down their names and looking for them through the alphabetical scroll bar, from which they can add them by clicking on the add button.

Lastly come the notification’s and setting’s page. Looking at the notifications page, users can view recent updates concerning them such as friends who’ve joined, comments that were made, and challenges that were sent and completed. The type of notification is indicated by different colored circle labels. Lastly, through the settings page, viewers can edit their personal information such as username and view other important figures.

Through its challenge, updates, and networking capabilities, Fitsy is an app that would bring “Social Fitness” to the lives of many.

— Edwin Hidalgo (Brown ‘17) and Christian Hidalgo (Brown ‘17)