FitMind
How might exercise help regulate my emotions?
Project Overview
A fitness mobile site offering workout suggestions based on mood.
Role
Duration
End-to-end designer
80 hours
Discover
My original hypothesis was that people prefer to workout in groups and the mood-boosting effects were heightened in partner exercise.
To discover common pain points in exercise platforms, I conducted user interviews of five participants about their relationship to exercise and what motivates them to workout.
“I’ll go for a run and think on things for a while and the movement really helps me process through things. I find that I feel better about myself when I workout.”
Interview Insights
There was no significant evidence that people prefer to exercise in groups over exercising alone.
Most people stated their main motivator for working out are the emotional benefits.
Most people said exercise helped them de-stress and feel better about themself.
New Hypothesis: People want an exercise routine that focuses on improving their mood.
Based on the common themes form my user interviews, I created this persona…
After synthesizing my findings, I needed to re-defined my design problem…
Main Problem
Most exercise platforms help users create goals around physical improvement, focusing on strength training, weight loss, and endurance. What if there was an exercise site that focused on emotional health where users could track their emotional trends and get workout recommendations based on their mood?
Define
I began brainstorming design possibilities…
How could I offer exercise recommendations that are tailored to the user’s mood?
What are the ways a user could track their emotional health through their exercise habits?
With these goals in mind, I developed the site’s main task flow. After creating an account, users can log their mood and complete a recommended workout.
Choosing a Mood
The first hurdle in this design was choosing how the user would document their mood. Would they choose from a predetermined list or would they write in their own answer? What are the pros and cons of having a fix list vs. an open-ended input?
Ultimately, I chose a fixed list of common moods. From the development side, a fixed list would allow for easier data grouping and trend tracking. Exercise recommendations could be linked to a specific option and users wouldn’t get stuck trying to define how they’re feeling.
I researched what are primary emotions and what are the most common emotions people report when seeking help.
Primary Emotions:
Happiness
Sadness
Anger
Fear
Disgust
Surprise
Contempt
Commonly cited emotions:
Anxiety
Depression
Stress
Anger
Grief
Loneliness
Guilt
For my final list, I chose Happy, Sad, Stressed, Anxious, Angry, and Depressed. I felt these six encapsulated the main emotions someone might experience when wanting to use FitMind. I chose to keep the list narrow because I felt many emotions could fall under these overarching mood categories. For example, emotions such as disgust and contempt could fall under “angry” and grief and loneliness could fall under “sad”.
Depicting Data
How can I visually represent data to make it most impactful for the user?
I wanted to offer the user three different ways of seeing their mood trends. I ordered the visualization from least to most complex so that users could choose how in-depth they wanted to go.
Show the last logged mood first at the top of their Profile Overview page.
Bar graph below on the Profile Overview page to show their top three moods (with a drop down menu to select from week, month, or year).
Radial graph in the Moods page to show trends across all six moods (with a drop down menu to select from week, month, or year).
Individual Icon
Easily recognizable.
Communicates most important information the fastest.
Gives users a direct comparison from how they felt last time to how they feel now.
Bar Chart
Easy for users to comprehend quickly.
Shows only the top three most important mood trends.
Radial Graph
The circular shape allows for all the variables while being compact and saving screen space.
Avoids unintentional hierarchy of variables that a linear chart might give.
Designing theTask Flow
After taking my designs from mid-fi to hi-fi, I decided to user test my first iteration. I observed, either in person or through a zoom call, as five participants navigated through the main task flow.
Through my observations, I was able to iterate further to improve the usability of my designs in the following ways…
Swap hamburger menu for bottom navigation bar.
Users found it challenging to access the profile page and home page through the hamburger menu. Creating a bottom navigation bar makes it easier for the user to move throughout the site by increasing navigational visibility.
Made Mood and Exercise Pages accessible from Profile Overview page.
Users found these pages hard to find when they were buried in the hamburger menu.
Improved the Profile Page.
Users did not recognize the profile page as such so I added a profile photo.
Version 1
Version 2
Version 1
Version 2
Version 1
Version 2
After implementing these usability changes along with improving the overall visual design, my second iteration offered a more intuitive and engaging experience.
Takeaways and Future Thinking
This was my first experience designing an end-to-end application. Not only was this an exciting opportunity to put my design knowledge into practice, it also allowed me insight on how to continue improving for future projects.
Conducting user interviews was challenging because I struggled with asking good open-ended questions, and I found myself skipping questions for the sake of a more seamless conversation. Next time I conduct user interviews, I know how to ask better questions and which types of questions will yield the richest results.
When I found myself getting lost in what features to include and how to organize the information on the site, I knew I needed to focus in on my initial design problem and my user. My next design process will be more focused because I better understand the importance of knowing exactly what problem I’m solving, who I’m solving it for, and how I’m choosing to solve it. Knowing the “why” for each design decision will help me be a more effective and intentional designer.
If FitMind were to be improved and expanded, I would love to explore more problem-solving design opportunities.
How can the user have more freedom in describing their mood?
Creating a journal where users can write a more in-depth review of their mood could allow for a deeper understanding of their emotional trends.
Finding a way to make the mood selector more open-ended could allow users to have more nuance in tracking their emotions.
Would the user want to connect with others FitMind users?
Creating a space for users to connect could add a community aspect that could support the user and enrich the experience.
The site could offer partnered workouts among its users.
How can the user set goals?
Creating a goal-setting feature could motivate users and help promote consistency in using the site.