CLASSVIP — Fitness mobile app concept
Role: Research & Design | Duration: 2 weeks | Status: Ongoing
Back when I was in college, I was into hip hop dance styles. There was a reputable hiphop dancer on campus who offered to teach a session. I found out, I was ecstatic, I signed up. When I got there, it was all females and one other guy. The song comes on; it was a slow, sensual, Rihanna song. When I saw the choreography, it was feminine & sexy. My buddy and I looked at each other like we just saw a ghost. Needless to say, it was an awkward and uncomfortable experience for me.
Now imagine that little Danny was able to see what that dance class experience would’ve been like beforehand. I’m pretty sure he would’ve not pressed that reserve button.
That’s how our team came up with the idea to give customers the instructor’s information they need in order to see what the class experience would be like.
Problem statement
Fitness instructor’s teaching styles are important factors people consider when looking for a workout, however, these factors are not known until after. By the time people have attended the class, they discovered that the overall class and workout experience did not meet their expectations.
How might we connect people to fitness instructors and classes that best match their needs and preferences?
With this question in mind, it kept our team’s vision aligned with the scope of the project.
Landscaping the market and for opportunities
We took a look at the market to see if any other companies are trying to do this and we found that:
Equinox and FORTE are the only ones trying to change the class experience by highlighting their instructors.
But, we believe that with CLASSVIP, we can make the experience better for both the customers and instructors.
Research
With an understanding of the scope of the project, we knew what we wanted to look for during our research phase. We wanted to see what the needs and pain points of fitness customers were during the class booking process and class experience.
During user interviews and contextual inquiry, we discovered:
Users are disappointed in the fitness class experience due to instructor’s personality and teaching style.
Music was an important factor for a good workout experience.
Struggled to communicate their questions and concerns to their instructor.
In our survey, we discovered the following, from our 32 respondents, things that are important when booking a class:
92% said instructor’s teaching style
88% said the music played during class
77% said class location
63% said class vibes
Personas
The following personas represent our target audience.
Design Phase
Now that we know what were the needs and pain points of our target users, it was time to perform a series of design studio where the team can ideate the possible solutions together.
Defining KPI’s
We are measuring for the following key performance Indicators:
- The number of new members
- Measure the retention of existing client base
- Decreased amount of dissatisfaction of customers after attending a class
Required API’s
We will be utilizing:
- Spotify’s API to integrate instructor’s spotify music playlist for users to access to get a better sense of what music they will be expecting in class.
- MindBody to allow users to access fitness classes and its schedule.
Designing for iOS first
We have decided to initially launch this concept first on the iOS system mainly because more than 50% of the iOS users are on their latest operating system vs. Android with approx. 30% of their users on their latest OS, and we want to use the latest technology to optimize our application.
As we progress, we will continue to build for Android, then responsive web.
Task Flow
The following is a visual representation of how a customer would navigate through the application in order to book a class through a preferred instructor.
User Flows
Here is how our target customer, Alex & Beth, would navigate through the application in order to feel confident in booking a class with the instructor that interests them.
We ultimately want users to book a class and feel confident that they’ve made the right choice. So, these task and user flows helped to visualize the pathways that will get customers to book a class that they will feel good about.
Usability Test
With our wireframes, we wanted to test for our product’s core features and they are: to search and discover instructors, access their content, book a class, and utilize the rating and chat system.
Our vision of success is the ability of our users to navigate intuitively through the product.
Usability Test Results — Round 1
In our first round of testing, task 2, 3 and 4 were completed with no issues. However, in task 1, 83% of our users were experiencing hindrances along the way.
Usability Test Results — Round 2
In round 2 of testing, we found significant improvement in task 1, however, it was still not intuitive enough for our users. In task 3, the score dropped, but we believe it was due to the participant’s decrease in performance since we noticed signs of fatigue. Since task 4 in round 1 was completed with no issues, we decided to switch up the task to test for the bulletin board feature. As you can see it was not successful because most of our users were confused about the icon that led them to the chat system.
PROTOTYPE
Link to prototype here.
Next steps forward
To move forward, we would like to:
- Conduct a card sort test to measure what are the main important content on an instructor’s profile (when presented after searching) will draw users into the profile.
- Build out the instructor’s facing side
- Flesh out the class page
- Do 1 more round of testing of our Hi-Fidelity prototype
The Team
The team consisted of a lead UI designer and a UX Researcher. My role was UX Designer in addition to being a project manager with additional roles which includes:
- Responsible for monitoring the status of the project.
- Prioritizing what was needed to move the project forward.
