TRACFIT

User Research

The project started with observation-based user research along with semi-structured interviews with representatives of the fitness community and an online questionnaire with over 10 participants. The observations and interviews both, were carried out via Zoom.

My goal was to have a deep understanding of how they are as a community, how they connect with each other, the problems they experience and how things have changed for them during the pandemic. After a detailed analysis of the responses provided by the participants, it was clear that the motivation to work out had taken a massive hit due to the members having to work out from home alone which also led to them having anxiety and depression. 

After collecting the user data, I organized the responses of all the participants by summarising the findings. Then to understand and prioritize each user’s needs I created individual empathy maps for each participant and then combined all the responses from the individual empathy maps to make one aggregated empathy map as insights from users exhibiting similar behaviour traits can be congregated in one segment.

After a detailed analysis of the responses provided by the participants, it was clear that they all thoroughly enjoy working out together. The group members motivate, encourage and push each other to do better which increases the member’s workout efficiency resulting in an improved fitness progress. For the group, socialising pre and post workout, where they talk about their everyday life, their diet, healthy recipes, new challenges they find online is also a very important part in keeping the community together. The group also often meet to a catch up and eat something as most of the group members are good friends with one another.

Based on my user research data, I then created two personas to represent the distinctive attributes of the group members reflecting the aggregate pain points and goals

Primary Persona

Secondary Persona

Existing User Journey

The persona’s existing user journey, pre-COVID, reflects on how her efficiency was high due to having a concrete support system, which would constantly push her to do better and not give up. Alex’s (primary persona), journey during COVID reflects upon her feelings in relations to her motivation going down because of not being able to work out with her friends and her work out timings clashing with her online classes. I developed the existing user journey using the storyboard approach, which highlighted the user’s goals, motivation and pain points and then finalised it using Adobe Photoshop.

Pre-COVID

During COVID

Design Goals and Requirements

Based on my findings from my primary research, I formed the following design goals:

1. Provide a platform to strengthen the connectedness within in community.

2. Provide a platform for members to be able to work out together and motivate each other.

3. Provide a platform for members to communicate.

4. Provide workout challenges for members to boost up healthy competition within the group.

5. Provide an opportunity to share their fitness progress and achievements.

6. Provide flexibility to members to workout at their convenience.

7. Provide a calorie counter and an opportunity to add and share recipes.

Conceptual Design

Based on the information gathered from user research, existing user journeys and personas, my aim was to ensure that the technology for the community should be such that it caters to all the needs identified in the process. These results were used to inform the design for the technology following ideation techniques like sketching and brainstorming. Several ideas were considered before finalising this as the best solution to their problems.

Future User Journey

Final Design

The final design of Tracfit consists of a life size OLED interactive touchscreen fitness display, a mobile app and a wearable band. Tracfit allows each fitness member to communicate and interact with their group members to keep the connectivity alive within the community and enables users to work out and keep connected from the comfort of their home.

Tracfit - Interactive Touchscreen Fitness Display

Tracfit is an innovative all in one life size OLED interactive touchscreen fitness display with a high definition front facing camera paired with a mobile app and a wearable band that monitors your heart rate and tracks your progress to enhance your workout efficiency. The front facing camera allows the users to see themselves and each other while working out. 

Measuring 60 by 30 by 1.5 inches (HWD), Tracfit comes with a wall mount and a 12 inches height adjustable stand, which can be extended to 24 inches as per the user’s requirements. Tracfit is powered by an intelligent software that would work together to give the users the experience of working out with their trainers and other group members from the comfort of their homes. Tracfit screen has a large selection of live and pre-recorded workouts and challenges for members to choose from, track their progress, count their calorie intake, chat via the messenger and an option for members to share and create healthy recipes for the community. The screen has a retractable global navigation slider on the left side for ease of use. The navigation slider will help the user to jump from one function to the other with a single touch.

Tracfit Features - Interactive Touchscreen Fitness Display

Workout

Users have two workout options to choose from; live or recorded. Live workout option takes the user to date selection, which then shows the user the available workout classes that are happening on that day. Users also have the option to check for live classes that will take place in the upcoming week. The front facing camera allows the users to see themselves while working out and have the option to add their friends in the class for motivation and encouragement. The recorded workout classes are carefully designed to meet the needs of the users who want to work out at a later time. They also have the option to play the trainer’s pre-recorded workouts. The recorded button will have a variety of workouts to choose from.

Calorie Tracker and Recipes

This feature allows the users to track their calories and view a wide range of recipes with pictures to choose from. The recipes will be shared by the user themselves and their group members. For many users, exercise routine and the right diet go hand in hand to reach their desired fitness goal, which is why having this feature is going to be very beneficial for the users.

However keeping a track of your calorie intake could seem daunting at first but Tracfit does the work for you. The user just has to type in the kind of food they had and it’s quantity and it will track it for you. It also give you a daily breakdown of your carbs, protein, and fat intake which allows you to make healthier choices.

Activity Goals

The Personalised Goal page on the Tracfit Screen informs the user how far they have reached towards reaching the goals they set for themselves. The goals can be altered using the Tracfit app. The goals are displayed as an overall goal, shown as a ring around the user’s picture, then by workout shown by rings around individual workout sessions and as a graph to show progress made in a timely interval acting as a motivating factor for the user.

Tracfit - Mobile Application

The purpose of the Tracfit mobile application is threefold; enables the users to set up their account on a technology they are familiar with. Once the account is set up, the application would take the user through a series of questions to set up their unique profile. After the profile is set up, it would automatically be displayed on the Tracfit screen once it is turned on. For the ease of the user, the messenger option can be used via the Tracfit mobile app as a tool to communicate with the group. It would also enable the users to share their progress and recipes with other members, not affecting the user’s mobility if they want to take the recipe with them to make healthy recipes.

Tracfit - Wearable Band

Tracfit Wearable Band plays a significant role in tracking and transferring important health and fitness data of the user to the Tracfit app and the screen. The Tracfit band is primary a heart rate and fitness progress monitor. The band can also be used for outdoor workouts, allowing the user to keep track of workouts not done on the screen. This would enable the user to keep on top of their fitness goals and share their achievements and progress with the group either through the screen or the application. 

Evaluation

To conduct a small-scale formative evaluation, I constructed an evaluation plan with five participants in total using a paper prototype . The participants were asked to invite their friends to work out with them using the Tracfit interactive screen, cook a healthy meal after the workout and upload the recipe using the Tracfit mobile app. Following that, low fidelity wireframes were made for the evaluation testing process. Adding friends in the workout class is what most users struggled with. Three out of five users were unsure of how to add friends in the class as they did not quite understand the function of the add friends button displayed as ‘+’. They were however able to figure it out after trying to press different functions of the screen. No participants raised any frustration regarding adding the recipe process because surprisingly by the time they got to the recipe page, they figured the functionality of the ‘+’ button. After getting feedback from the evaluation, I made the necessary changes and developed the high fidelity wireframes using Adobe XD. In order to avoid any future user frustrations, I took the participants feedback and changed the ‘+’ button to read ‘Add friends’ and ‘Add recipes’. Overall, the participants thought it was easy to navigate through the navigation bar on the side, liked the live workout option and the selection of workouts from beginner to more advanced workouts. 

Overall, the evaluation was very encouraging and helpful. All participants spoke well of the system, praising the simplicity of its navigation and the helpfulness of its features.