App Redesign
MOTIVATION
I have experience of being a member for some of popular American gyms chains including 24 Fitness, LA Fitness, and Planet Fitness. Over several years I have chosen these gyms based on the distance, price, and fitness equipments. However, all these gyms have numerous boutique fitness classes taught by instructors. As boutique class in gyms have become a big part of traditional gyms over many years, gyms now provide the functionality to register/reserve class on their mobile applications. I chose LA Fitness because it is the gym where I had the membership most recently. LA Fitness mobile application attempts to maintain connection with its members. Major functions include checking-in to the club, finding clubs and classes, creating quick access to one’s favorite clubs, classes, and instructors.
RESEARCH & CHALLENGE
Survey or user interview could definitely be useful research methods to understand the user need and problem for this project. However, due to my circumstance of being out of country and no longer a LA Fitness member, I had to find other possible ways to figure out the user need. First thing I did was to reach out to my friends who still go to the gym. I asked their opinion on the application and what they find most challenging. I interviewed three participants though chat and found out they only seem to use it when they check in or when they want to see the calendar to keep track of how many days they went to gym. All of the participants found the application not worthy to use on daily basis because of poor UI and complex services. I needed different perspectives on this app. In order to overcome this problem, I decided to look at the app store reviews. By doing so I would be able to find opinions from gym members who use the application for their own good and, at the same time, find certain aspects of the application that users want to improve. On Google Play and App Store, I could find a lot of complaints in numerous aspects of the application. Especially I found that huge part of negative feedbacks come from class reservation function.
“Word of Mouth” from user comments on app store reviews.
PROBLEM & INSIGHTS
Because of my current circumstance I could not conduct survey or execute user interviews. However, I found that app store reviews of real users of LA Fitness app clearly reveals their need and concerns. Many of these opinions were often more straight to the point than responses I could achieve from surveys. Most of the reviews point out specific functions to improve, describe detail situation, and eventually recommend alternations that would make the application more user friendly. Among countless feedbacks I found on the app reviews, many found boutique class reservation function very inconvenient.
