Gymmy: Your Gym Buddy

Gymmy functions as a social media platform that provides users with guidance and facilitates interactions and allows users to share their insights, knowledge, and utilizes these interactions to motivate and gym goers with their personal progress.

Duration: 12 weeks

Team: Independent

Role: UIUX Designer

Tools: Figma

Methods:

Experience Mapping, User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Usability Testing, Wireframing, Prototyping

5 Stages of Design Thinking: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test

The Problem

People feel intimidated, judged, and lost at the gym, especially for beginners because they don’t know what to do. Every year, more than half (~67%) of new gym memberships are completely unused, more than half of new memberships are canceled within the first 6 months, resulting in a monthly attrition rate of 3-5%.

Research Goals

My research will explore the reasons behind why new gym members are hindered from going to the gym, and find a solution that will help them overcome these obstacles so they can progress toward their personal fitness goals.

Double Diamond Design Model

I utilized the Double Diamond Design Model and the four phases (Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver) to help guide my research and design process. Given the time constraints, this model allowed me to embrace ambiguity, be creative, ideate freely, and keep me moving forward towards my final solution.

Secondary Research

After reading several articles, studies, and academic papers online, I was able find that:

1

More than half of gym members admitted to avoiding the gym out of fear of judgement or anxiety.


2

47% of gym goers feel intimidated training next to another member who is physically fit.

3

7 out of 10 young adults stated that they felt judged by others while exercising at the gym.

Connect With Me!

DINGOSBERT@GMAIL.COM

© 2023 Osbert Ding

How Might We?

How might we help new gym members overcome their insecurities and provide them with a comfortable experience so they stay motivated to achieve their fitness goals?

Assumptions

Before conducting further research, I formed some assumptions on why I think users are unable to continue on with their fitness journey, resulting in an unused or canceled membership. Through the user interview process, I will be able to check and see if my assumptions are correct. If my assumptions are invalid, then I know I need to redirect my focus towards other issues and how to address them through my design solution.

  1. New gym goers feel lost and are unsure about what to do at the gym in order to achieve their fitness goals.

  2. New gym goers lack feedback and indicators for their progress at the gym, therefore they don't believe they have made progress.

  3. New gym goers lack accountability which causes them to stray from their goals.

  4. New gym goers feel judged for their beginner status by other veteran gym goers.

Interviews

After gaining a deeper understanding of the problem space, I proceeded to conduct one-on-one user interviews on three participants and collected data with open-ended questions. The interview answers are then organized through an affinity map, in Pain Points, Motivation/Goals, and Behaviours to help me better visualize the information and identify reoccurring themes.

The interview answers are then organized and grouped together by themes, then summarized with an insight statement. By synthesizing the data into themes and insights, I can now better understand what issues that users are truly experiencing, and how I can help solve these problems through my design solution.

Hypothesis

I believe many new gym members lack direction, knowledge, and companionship when they go to the gym, which is often why their memberships go unused and canceled within the first six months, causing them to stray further from their fitness goals.


I will know that I am right when more than 50% of the participants indicate the lack of direction, knowledge, and companionship as their main hindrance to go to the gym.

User Stories

To better understand the user's wants, needs, goals, and pain points, I then generated a total of 20 user stories, categorized by epics, which then helped me create a task flow diagram based on the epic with the most user stories.

Task Flow Diagram

Creating this task flow diagram helped guide me in establishing the process of the task the user wants to accomplish using my design solution.

Exploratory Sketches

I begin to search for UI inspiration, designs that currently work well from other applications and competitors, then implementing these designs into my own design solution. By sketching these ideas down, I can quickly and easily document a rough draft of my design before I begin to prototype the design digitally.

Low & Mid Fidelity Prototype

The exploratory sketches are then transferred and digitized onto Figma, wire-framed, and prototyped. This allowed me to create a simple prototype to begin testing on users to see if the functionality and general purpose of the design was clear, intuitive to use, and learnable to new users. I conducted two rounds of usability testing with 5 users in each round, and continued to iterate and improve the usability of the design.

Brand Development

I curated images, adjectives, phrases, More A than B lists, explored typography, extracted colors, and designed wordmarks and application icons in order to develop the brand identity of the product.

I wanted to choose a bold, strong, modern font that helps conveys a boost of energy with an approachable and fun atmosphere, and after exploring many typefaces, I decided to move forward with Avenir Next Heavy.

I first started looking for tints and shades of yellow, as yellow represents energy, positivity, motivation. I then gravitated towards green in the mood board, as green conveys nature and health. I noticed that other industry leaders such as Nike use neon colors, so to combine the two colors I had in mind, I decided that the neon green yellow in the mood board was perfect as the primary brand color for Gymmy.

The Design Solution

Finally, the brand colors and typography are injected into the design solution, bringing the product to life, resulting in this high fidelity prototype, which incorporates more details that will reflect the app when it is fully functioning.

Marketing Website

I then created a responsive marketing website for the Gymmy App that fits desktop and mobile. This will be the landing page that will redirect users to download the app when the app is officially launched and being marketed towards our target audience.

Keeping Other End Users & Devices in Mind

After the design was complete for iOS, I wanted to create a design for Gymmy that is compatible for the Apple Watch and adjusted the interface accordingly to fit.


Many users would want to exercise at the gym without having to carry their phones and tables around, and the Apple Watch is a compact and lightweight device used on-the-go, perfect for the gym.


The Apple Watch itself is already a tool used by many people to track health and fitness related data, so allowing users to access the Gymmy app on the watch allows more user choice and flexibility.

The Future of Gymmy

At Gymmy's current state, the application is only developed for one specific task flow. I would like to expand and explore the many other task flows I originally had in mind, such as interacting with other users in more detail, searching up and learning correct ways of performing each exercise in depth, and more.


I would also like to continue to iterate the current design to improve usability and make the application even more intuitive to use. At the last round of usability tests, I received contradicting insights from my participants, so I would like to explore the issue further.


I would also like to explore and expand on the use of animation for interactions with users, to make the application more enjoyable and delightful for every user.

Tarot Cards of Tech

The Tarot Cards of Tech is a way for creators in the industry to gaze into the future and think about the impacts our innovations may have on the world, from unintended consequences to opportunities for positive change.

If two friends use Gymmy together, it can allow them to progress towards their fitness goals together, even if they are not physically with one another. The two friends can share their gym knowledge, participate in the same workouts, and can even promote friendly competition with each other that can provide motivation and help them persevere through obstacles.

If Gymmy becomes widely successful, and users openly share and make insights, knowledge accessible to all users, roles like personal trainers in the industry may be threatened.


However, if personal trainers collaborate and partner with Gymmy, there are many possible solutions where instead of competing with and eliminating trainers, Gymmy can be used as a tool that actually helps them.