Exercise
LA Fitness mobile application is known for its outdated interface and design. As a former loyal member of LA Fitness gym and as a designer, I decided to dissect its experience and redesign it.
RESEARCH & CHALLENGE
A survey or user interview could definitely be useful to understand the user's need and problems 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.
USER FEEDBACK
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.
I was able to narrow it down to some critical elements with class reservation.
1. Home gym registration
2. Reservation button
3. Reminder for a class that is added to a calendar
4. Easy access to multiple clubs
5. Number of space left for class
Currently, users cannot register their home gym so that they either have to type in address or find their club on a map every time they open the app in order to check the class schedule primary gym.
Second, they have to repeat this process until they find a club that has a class they are looking for.
STORYBOARD
A storyboard visually predicts and explores a user’s experience with a product. It will help me understand the flow of people’s interaction with the product throughout the project and give me a clear sense of what’s really important for users.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
I analyzed functionalities across top competitors in order to find out what solutions are already out in the market and what specific user interaction users now are interacting with these days. Studying competitor products properly by being a user gives you the chance to see what features work well, what features don’t work so well, Common patterns in the sector that users will probably be used to, and new patterns or features that offer inspiration.
WIREFRAME
I implemented new functions to satisfy user needs previously addressed in problem section. And at the same time, I had to maintain existing functions of LA Fitness that users found no problem with. The concept of the design was “do everything on one screen”. Through competitive analysis, I learned that most of competitors and even original LA Fitness app have filter function that allows user to filter out specific options. However, because most of the apps have only few options to choose, going to other screen/page only to filter out seems unnecessary and may lead users feel out of place.
USABILITY TEST
I ran usability test on one LA Fitness app users and three non-LA Fitness app users. All participants were given the same goal which was to reserve a yoga class at specific time. The goal was to test solution concept, clarity of components, and user efficiency. The participants gave great feedbacks.
“Being able to see all class options depending on distance is convenient”
“It is not clear which button to click to reserve a class”
“It would be great if it is possible to one-click a class to instantly reserve a class”
PROTOTYPE
Based on the user feedbacks collected from usability test, I applied alternations and additions. As a result I created a prototype to help better understand and see how a product or application works, what it does and how you should interact with it.
