A Workout With a Community
fitCONNECT is a fitness and workout app that is here for you to improve your healthy habits while also building a community that is there to cheer you on.
Project Details
My Role
UX Researcher, Visual Designer, & Interaction Designer
Tools
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
The Problem Space
fitCONNECT is a fitness and workout app that is aimed for users to work on building and maintaining healthy habits while also building a supportive and motivational community to help you on your fitness journey. Working on retention and communication within the app was the biggest ask so it was important to focus on building on those features.
Apps Researched
Duolingo
Apple Fitness\
fitlist
Discover
User Research
Scope
December 2024 - March 2025
Methods
User Research, Competitive Analysis, Visual Design
Different features of each app was studied to create fitCONNECT. Duolingo has a good renention rate for keeping users coming back daily, and the streak usage was studied. Apple Fitness has a great progress section that users enjoy following throughout the day. Fitlist is a great standard workout tracking app.
Competitive analysis revealed that Duolingo, Apple Fitness and fitlist all had features to be integrated into a community based fitness app.
User interviews played a vital role in determining what users look for in a fitness app. Five participants were interviewed and asked questions that helped me understand when and why they were to use a fitness app. There was a lack of community building in many of their current apps and it was discovered that community and having motivation from friends and loved ones was something that could help kickstart their fitness journey.
Develop
User Flows
With a user flow, I had a better understanding of how my designs would appear before I had even begun sketching.
The user flow would need to include:
An account creation that had the step-by-step process for inputting your information, personalizing your fitness goals, and syncing contacts and a smart watch
A profile for yourself
A personal dashboard where friends can post motivation along with a dashboard for each friend where you can post for them
A daily streak to help users stay motivated for daily activity
Badges for your successes and progress
A daily summary profile where you can see how close you are to your daily goals along with a weekly summary
Private messaging and group messaging
Wireframing
With the user flows, I created the wire framing to start building out the various screens that would answer the needs of the app.
Brand
The fitCONNECT logo was created to give a sense of peace and safety with the more muted color palette, along with highlighting the important connection aspect the app has for community building.
Color Palette
The color palette was important as users are meant to feel calm and empowered to get the work done. Blues and greens typically represent tranquility and growth so the color palette is focused on those hues.
Typography
Iconography
UI Elements
Photography
High Fidelity Mockups
With the research and branding fitCONNECT was ready to come to life with high-fidelity mockups for the usability testing.
Usability Testing
First Round Testing Findings
Overall the first round of testing went well and revealed some key findings:
Overall positive reception on the brand and logo
positive, gives hope, eye catching
More customization was wanted for personal fitness goals, challenges and badges
Motivation reminders throughout the day would add to remembering daily use and check ins
Second Round Testing Findings
Communication and community in the app is a fun way to get friends involved in your workout journey
Streak gave it some motivation to come back daily
The brand is aesthetically pleasing and calm
Reflection
With this being my last project in the bootcamp I moved much more quickly through this process than before. Tackling the problem of retention and communication was an interesting thing to solve in a fitness app, where one may not think that communication is important.
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During user interviews it was clear that having a community around you is a big motivator to get started and keep going. With this the bulletin boards, daily streaks and daily reminders were born and became a very important part of the user experience of this concept.