StayFit- Sports and Fitness app- UI/UX case study

In this article, I’ll discuss why having a specific niche app for users is essential, particularly when it comes to health, fitness, and of-course your favorite sport.

The Need

You folks may well be wondering why this specific niche, and why on earth I care whether or not people participate in sports. Well, let me tell you a story. Hari is a boy who was born and brought up in Delhi. Sometimes he feels nostalgic thinking about the days when he was in eighth grade. Life was so simple then. The timetable was fixed - after school, some rest, some study, and then around 5 pm he would go outside to meet his friends from the colony, and they would play all kinds of games ranging from hide-and-seek to football, from just running blindly to cricket. After exhausting all their energy, strangely, they all felt stronger and more confident. Around 10 p.m. he would go to bed and sleep like a baby, effortlessly.

Hari is not the same anymore. The pressure of studies and the obsession with the digital world is a nasty recipe for deteriorating mental health and physical well-being.

All of Hari’s friends have moved to different locations. Now, he is overweight and mildly depressed. Additionally, it is hard for him to sleep without taking his sleeping medication. He has no one to play with, so he just sits in front of his laptop or smartphone, staring at the infinite void through the screens, not realizing his life is turning into one (This paints quite a picture, doesn’t it?).

I know, I know…you might be wondering.

Although it may seem exaggerated to you, the reality is actually far closer to this than you might realize.

Here are some things I found (I was as shocked as you guys are).

But on the brighter side, I also found this.

To conclude all of this, we can say four things:

1. Sports activities have a direct impact on people’s mental state.
2. Gen Z used to participate in a lot of outdoor activities before they abruptly stopped.
3. They want to stay fit mentally and physically especially after the pandemic. (Well…duh!)
4. There is something that is stopping them.

Before diving into the pain points, I conducted some research to better understand my target audience.

Target Audience

So the people most affected by this are Gen Z. However, as I continued my research, I discovered that there are more nuances to this.

There are people ranging from age 16–30 who want to engage in any sports activity, but are not able to do so due to XYZ reasons.

Then, there are children under the age of 16 whose parents are concerned about their physical and mental well-being because they spend the majority of their time playing mobile games instead of playing outside in the real world.

To better segregate my thoughts, I created these personas to represent the target users.

Pain Points

After conducting thorough secondary research, which included distributing surveys everywhere I could and conducting interviews with eligible people, I gained some insights regarding the user’s actual pain points and needs.

Conducting the surveys gave me an idea about what the users want.

During the users’ interviews, I discovered the following things-

1. Users have difficulty comparing different sports clubs.
2. They do not want to fill out lengthy registration forms.
3. They want to be able to view important club spots from their homes.

I once read in a book named 'Atomic Habits' that the environment plays a huge role in creating good habits and ending bad ones. This was the key to understanding the pain points.

The main reason people are not able to go out and play is that they are not in an environment that promotes this behavior. Rather, they are in an environment that opposes the desired behavior.

For example, let’s assume Ram wants to play, but there is no place in his locality that provides him the right environment to play. The playground is always crowded, with some people playing cricket, some groups of middle-aged women just chatting around, and in the middle, a crowd of elderly men discussing politics.

Similarly, Bharat, who is 12 years old, used to play football under the supervision of his coach, but since his family relocated, he no longer has a coach to train him.

His mother searches for an academy on Google but is quickly overwhelmed by the thousands of results as she is not very tech-savvy.

I mapped the user’s journey to gain deeper insights into their pain points.

To sum it up, following are the obstacles in front of people trying to get out of the “Digital Rabbit Hole”:

1. Finding the right place

Finding a suitable place with sports that match your interests and an ambiance that suits you, all at a price that fits your budget, is as challenging as my attempt to use the word "suitable" five times in a sentence. (Quite an accomplishment!)

2. Availability and Information about the coach

Finding a qualified coach with recognized qualifications who can provide training from the comfort of your home is a difficult task.

3. The Abundance Trash

Getting results that are not relevant, and reviews that sometimes feel to good to be true make users a lil bit anxious and that is not a good experience.

4. Respecting users time

There is no virtual tour offered to the user, and the user feels that it is a waste of time for them to visit the area only to check the location.

5. No Book and Play

Some users prefer to make random plans with their friends when it comes to playing outdoor sports. They want to be able to book a place for that time only without having to subscribe or anything.

At the same time, some users want to play every day

6. Finding a Partner

some people fail to indulge in any sports activity because they can’t find someone to play with, they may be the only child, or because of some other reason.

Solution

After combining research insights to journey maps and persons I was able to visualize the solution

1. Designing an app that helps users find Sports clubs that exactly matched their needs be it ambiance, crowd, coach, or distance.
2. Providing playing partners to those who require them.
3. Options to reserve and participate in specific sports for one-time users.
4. Hassle-free registration Process from home.
5. Curated information regarding clubs that is relevant to the user.

Research

There are no major apps in this particular niche but I did take a few inspirations from the following applications:

1. Fitso
2. Cult-Fit

following the creation of a framework for fitness-based apps.

I switched to various sports and fitness-related websites and began highlighting positive experiences. Reading both positive and negative evaluations truly helped me grasp what’s working and what isn’t.

Visual Design

Well Well Well, Finally we are here..

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1. Onboarding and Signup screens help to create a positive first impression — Onboarding screens are the first thing a user sees when they open an app, and they can make a huge impact on the user experience. By designing compelling, engaging onboarding screens, we can create a positive first impression and set the tone for the rest of the user experience.
2. Onboarding screens help to educate users — Onboarding screens provide an opportunity to educate users on the app’s features, functions, and benefits. By leveraging onboarding screens to provide clear and concise instructions, brands can ensure that users understand how to use the app and get the most out of it.

From here things get a little complex as I have tried to create two different experiences for Academy and Play Arena

The experience I tried to provide is more kid-friendly because the academy welcomes children, and since most users will be parents, I kept the colour scheme subtle and playful

The play arena, however, has been made a little more robust as most users would be 16 or older.

1. Improve User Understanding and Efficiency: Highlighting important things helps users to quickly understand how the product works. It can also help them to become more efficient in their use of the product by helping them to quickly find and access the most important information.
2. Increase Engagement: Highlighting important things can also help to increase engagement. By drawing attention to specific features or sections, users can be encouraged to explore further and become more engaged with the product.

Knowing the outcome of their actions makes users more likely to do the intended action.

As a result, indicating the number of calories burned by participating in a certain sport activity will motivate users to reserve a slot.

Displaying the number of bookings from the previous week can serve as Social Proof

By showing off a large and satisfied user base, we can give potential customers more confidence in your product.

A virtual tour app provides an immersive experience for users, allowing them to explore the club and its facilities from the comfort of their own homes. Users can take a virtual tour of the club grounds, the locker rooms, parking lots and more.

And that’s about it guys I hope you made it through me blabbering about Sports and Fitness

My Takeaways

1. Time Management: The case study was quite helpful in helping me understand the value of time and how to arrange my work in order to finish it on schedule.
2. Understanding the “Why” behind each issue that the user has encountered was more important than anything else in this project,
3. For me, the part that helped me a lot was creating documentation since it guided my research phase as well as helped me in making the right design choices.

My Learnings

1. Iteration is the Key — Over the whole journey I’ve come to realize that We’ve all heard it before — iteration is key! But when it comes to UX design, it really can’t be understated. Think of it as baking a cake — each layer builds on the one before it, creating something truly delicious. With each iteration, we tweak and refine the design, taking the user experience to the next level. Iteration is the secret sauce to creating a truly delightful and successful user journey.
2. Patience Patience and what’s that..yeah some more Patience — With iterations it can sometimes get a bit frustrating to keep repeating one step again and again but with patience and perseverance the whole journey becomes manageable

behind-the-scenes ( Spoiler alert ! It’s a little messy )

🤝Also, currently, I am open to opportunities as a Product Designer. Do reach out to me on LinkedIn for any feedback, discussions, or collaborations, I’d be more than happy to have a chat with you!

You can also mail me at Iamtheayushpandey@gmail.com