Incorporating social features and online coaching into weight loss app
The Chellenge
A well-established company launched a family and friends fitness and weight loss app for iOS and Android three years ago. The app offers features for tracking diet and exercise. Currently, there are no social and coaching features within the product. The company wants to integrate social and personal coaching features into the app.
Objectives & Goals
Here are the two main business goals that I had to understand before planning how to design social and coaching features that ensure sustained engagement:
Create the opportunity to share health and fitness goals/achievements through the community zone via groups and forums
Create an integrated messaging experience with personal coaches throughout the product that drives engagement and repeat usage.
The first step in my plan was to run a competitor analysis for Weight Watchers, My Fitness Pal, and Noom to understand how their social and coaching features work. I also needed to find possible gaps in them along with the learnings and inspirations.
Secondary Research
User Interviews
Although the secondary research provided some clarity and inspiration regarding the messaging feature, I still wanted to understand how the potential user might feel about the introduction of such a feature.
Persona and Empathy Maps
The user hopes to create a community that is centered around achievements and the overall fitness journey of her friends and family.
User Flows
With the interview insights I gathered, there appear to be two potential approaches to implementing this new feature.
Wireframes
At the start of this project, I was presented with the business goals, a few extra tasks and the names of a few competitors. Along with all of this, I was also shared rough wireframes of the app screens where the feature could play a potential role.
After a lot of iterations and sketching, these were the wireframes on which I ran a usability test.
Registered user shares a photo/post with community
I was considering using the profile screen to allow users to share their progress with their community within the app. Additionally, users should still be able to share their progress with people who are not using the app.
Registered users send messages to Coaches
In this flow, the user can message one of the selected coaches.
Select a photo from Gallery
Usability Testing
The goal of conducting this test was:
To understand if the user could share a photo with community
To understand if there are gaps in send private Message to Personal Coach
To identify if there are any chances that the user might come back to the app
To identify if there are any gaps in the overall user experience
Here is a look at the changes that were implemented.
You can view the full report here.
Issue 2: Search box function on homepage confused the user
The solution was to remove serch box from the Homescreen
The solution was to replace share icon to Message Icon
The solution was to remove Explore Groups from the front of the page Connect
The solution was to skip the step Keep my post public or private
Issue 1: Share icon not associated with Share a photo or sand massage task
Issue 3: ”Explore Groups” on the first plan confuse the users
Issue 4: Step “Keep post public or Private” confused
This project was about adding a new feature and understanding if this new feature can achieve the metrics that the stakeholders want to achieve. It was a challenge in itself as I had to work around the current functionality and architecture of the app. Early on you need to set certain boundaries and challenges yourself to be creative and iterate as much as possible.
Keeping in mind the current socio and economic scenario, I had to keep the previously done user behaviour on one side and conduct new user research to understand the shift in the behaviour.
It was important to bring some sense of community into the feature addition as that is something that the user wanted. So it is possible that through some amount of exploration, you might end up pitching a completely new idea for the feature.
Lastly, the design stages for a feature addition is very different from the design stage for designing a new app or flow or module. The former has a set of challenges and structures around which one has to work around. You cannot dismiss the user behaviour which is already set in stone for that app. The latter has many advantages as it is a blank canvas that you are working around. The challenges are minimal in that sense and the structure is non-existent.
Learnings
WW emphasizes community support, allowing users to connect with others who are also on their weight loss journey. This can provide a sense of camaraderie and motivation.
MyFitnessPal allows users to connect with friends, share progress, and provide mutual support, fostering a sense of accountability.
Noom's community flow often includes personalized coaching, providing users with guidance, support, and accountability from a human coach.
The color palette of most of these apps was vibrant enough to guide the user’s attention to the important parts.
Some of the key findings from the interviews were as follows:
The participants instantly related to the ‘Sharing’ or ‘Messaging’ feature to let the world know of their achievements which is not what they relate their fitness with.
Sharing fitness stories seems like setting a form of competition amongst friends and family.
After a lot of follow up questions, they shared that the one aspect that they would want to share and text their peers are the routines or challenges that ‘helped’ them or presented them with new fitness revelations.
Sharing fitness routines used to feel intimidating but the discussions led to interesting insights around this.
High Fidelity Designs
Most fonts have a particular weight which corresponds to one of the numbers in Common weight name mapping. However some fonts, called variable fonts, can support a range of weights with a more or less fine granularity, and this can give the designer a much closer degree of control over the chosen weight.
Most fonts have a particular weight which corresponds to one of the numbers in Common weight name mapping. However some fonts, called variable fonts, can support a range of weights with a more or less fine granularity.
Most fonts have a particular weight which corresponds to one of the numbers in Common weight name mapping.
H3 Heading Title
in two lines
A trusted friend with a good sence of humore who always has your best interests in mind
Contemporary
Trustworthy
Humorous
Motivational
After running the first round of tests and incorporating all the feedback, I went on to design the screens with the below-set brand identity.
I ran a usability test with a PROTOTYPE on these designs as well and I found little to no issues with the designs. The questions and task for this usability test were mainly to understand if the user finds the feature addition of any value and how it might influence the frequency of them opening the app regularly.
User Flows
With the interview insights I gathered, there appear to be two potential approaches to implementing this new feature.
Select a photo from Gallery
I ran a usability test with a PROTOTYPE on these designs as well and I found little to no issues with the designs. The questions and task for this usability test were mainly to understand if the user finds the feature addition of any value and how it might influence the frequency of them opening the app regularly.
Learnings
Lastly, the design stages for a feature addition is very different from the design stage for designing a new app or flow or module. The former has a set of challenges and structures around which one has to work around. You cannot dismiss the user behaviour which is already set in stone for that app. The latter has many advantages as it is a blank canvas that you are working around. The challenges are minimal in that sense and the structure is non-existent.
It was important to bring some sense of community into the feature addition as that is something that the user wanted. So it is possible that through some amount of exploration, you might end up pitching a completely new idea for the feature.
Keeping in mind the current socio and economic scenario, I had to keep the previously done user behaviour on one side and conduct new user research to understand the shift in the behaviour.
This project was about adding a new feature and understanding if this new feature can achieve the metrics that the stakeholders want to achieve. It was a challenge in itself as I had to work around the current functionality and architecture of the app. Early on you need to set certain boundaries and challenges yourself to be creative and iterate as much as possible.
