Fitness tracking app does not retain their userbase.
The essence of a fitness tracking is simple: the user tracks their exercise to see their progress over time. However, with the saturation of fitness apps in the marketplace, what makes a fitness app standout? Specifically, what are the aspects that will draw in users and keep them engaged?
I was tasked with redesigning the fitness tracking app Kasvu, whose app facilitates an environment where both friends and family share their fitness accomplishments. However, average user engagement after its first 3 weeks heavily declines. The app tasked me to implement 2 tasks:
An integrated communication feature that updates friends about user goals and achievements
Features that increase repeat usage and engagement
With these tasks in mind, I started researching what defines top fitness apps to find the ultimate solution.
The solution
Meet KASVU: the fitness app that integrates social feedback and gamification to increase user retention
1. Challenge your friends to exercise duels.
Continuously improve your physical health with the company of friends.
2. React to your friend's exercises.
Communicate through simple emojis to send your well-wishes.
3. Share your success.
Completing an exercise is an achievement. Share them with the world!
Secondary research
Tracking the exercise is not enough.
Since I wanted to learn the perspective of users who've frequently use fitness apps, I researched many online sources:
I also took a look at more quantitative data, looking at information databases like Statista. From Statista's "Digital Fitness & Well-Being Segment Data Analysis & Forecast", the chart below lists the biggest companies in the fitness tracking app and details what makes each company unique and successful.
After comparing the data I gathered, I made a small list of some of the key themes that were extremely prominent in retaining user engagement for leading fitness tracking apps:
Data visualization for tracking data
Rewarding user goals and achievements through gamification
Social sharing with friends and family
Apps that's collaborative, either either with other lifestyle apps or other platforms like smart watches
Competitive analysis
Similar fitness tracking apps had very little social interaction between users.
I also investigated industry leaders in tracking apps. I looked at two fitness apps, Nike Run Club and Strava, and one productivity tracker, Productive Habits. Later on, I looked at apps such as Apple Fitness and Google Fit to better reference fitness tracking user interface and flow.
Looking at industry apps was extremely helpful on what features that I wanted to include and features I wanted to avoid. Specifically, a lot of apps were bloated with features, making navigation confusing.
One thing that I noticed was that none of these apps including a direct messaging feature, making me question whether a social messaging feature was really necessary for the user experience?
User interviews
Contrary to my initial assumption, users exercised for a variety of reasons.
After my initial research, I decided to hit my local university gym to find and interview students who've used fitness apps before. In total, I conducted 5 user interviews, asking a variety of questions having to do with their fitness app experience.
Main Research Questions:
Do you use a fitness tracking app?
What are the most engaging features of any fitness app you use?
What features do you look for when choosing a fitness tracker?
What are some difficulties you've experienced when tracking your fitness workouts?
What is your opinion on sharing your fitness progress with friends?
So.... What did the people say?
Affinity Mapping + Insights
After my interviews, I compiled my interviewee's answers on a Figjam file. This was extremely useful as mapping all my interviewee's allowed me to see common themes and insights between the 5 interviewees.
Main Themes & Insights:
What are the holistic reasons why users work out?
What do users think about integrating a social aspect in fitness tracking app?
What features in a fitness app are users most attracted to?
Persona
The insights and themes I discovered were really helpful in consolidating information to ultimately to form a Persona.
Creating the persona really helped me envision and empathize with the user. From constructing my persona, it really put into perspective how the user flow of tracking an exercise is extremely vital. Many users are often in the motion of performing an exercise, so the act of tracking the exercise should be simple. Otherwise, user engagement and retention would drastically decrease.
How might we's + Hypothesis
What are the main areas to focus on when retaining user engagement?
To conclude the main user research part, based off my Persona and User Insights, I identified key questions that turned user insights into problems that I could solve through ideation. For me, this was the most vital step of the entire process, as defining the HMW's defined the direction I would take the fitness app.
If we gamify the fitness aspects of KASVU, inspired by elements such as social communication and competition, users will be more likely to engage with the app.
User flows
Defining the most critical user interactions.
Looking at my HMWs, I drew out what were the key journeys from my app that could potentially lose a user's engagement or integrate a social interaction with another user.
information architecture
Organizing the features in an cohesive way is key for an intuitive user experience.
Defining the screens and the architecture was one of the most critical moments during this project: users often dropped apps if they felt like they were too complicated. During this process, I sorted the MVP features that I wanted to implement into distinct categories: home, calendar, friends, and challenges.
As I look through this step retroactively, even though I spend a good amount of time sorting the information out, my final product features a slightly different architecture after two rounds of user feedback, showcasing to me that it's vital to have a flexible strategy in mind when designing.
Design + Iterations
Sketches to final prototype.
To get to my final solution, I went through 3 stages of wireframing: sketches, lo-fidelities, and hi-fidelities. To continuously improve each iteration, I did 5 usability tests each for both my lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes.
testing
Major yet continuous improvements towards the user experience.
I'm done! This project was pretty hard, due to my unfamiliarity with the subject matter. However, this unfamiliarity also made this process surprisingly a lot more fun than I thought; the lack of knowledge reminded me of solving a tricky puzzle! Regardless of my completion, I do have some final thoughts:
My one regret is not interviewing more people. Since I was fortunate enough to live on a college campus next to a gym, I had plenty of people to perform user testing and interviews on. However, college students are a specific demographic, meaning they have specific perspectives that are different from other demographics.
If I were to continue on this case study, I would love to work on a smart watch extension! I noticed in my user interviews that users typically used their app in tandem with their smart watch. Furthermore, it would be interesting to design something on a less conventional screen.
