FitSpace

Embedded content: https://youtu.be/2ufEOBUyHGE

OVERVIEW

Health and fitness has always been a passion of mine; I was once considering pursuing personal training as a career. After working with some of the top personal trainers in San Francisco, I saw firsthand the challenge of connecting the right trainers with clients. This was a perfect challenge for a UX project with my class at General Assembly.

PROBLEMS

• Personal trainers need a way to find more clients because it is difficult and expensive to advertise as a quality trainer.

• People that want a personal trainer need a way to find one for their needs or without gym a membership.

With the personal training industry growing quickly in tangent with obesity rates in the United States, there is a two sided problem that is becoming more and more evident: personal trainers need a way to find more clients because it is not only difficult but expensive to advertise as a quality personal trainer, and people that want a personal trainer need a way to find one for their needs and goals with or without a gym membership.

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SOLUTION

Our solution is to give trainers a way to advertise themselves in a transparent and professional way that is effective and efficient--FitSpace. By providing a web based platform that allows personal trainers to advertise themselves in a way that highlights their certification, education, and specialties, it gives them a way to stand out from the competition and not waste their time and money on a platform that won’t get them clients.

On the client side, it will allow people that are in search of a personal trainer to find one that fits their specific physical needs or goals, and without a gym membership.

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PROCESS

FitSpace is providing a solution to inefficient advertising resources for personal trainers as well as mismatched trainer-client relationships. We are solving problems for two customers: personal trainers and clients. We are also radically expanding the addressable market by attracting to the baby boomer population and by reducing the barrier of purchasing gym memberships and intimidation to find a personal trainer. This new venture will make a difference in the personal training industry because currently there isn’t an option that allows independent trainers the freedom to highlight their training specialties, experience, and certifications in a professional, and money efficient way.

Much of this industry is based on looks but six pack abs don’t make someone a quality personal trainer; their years of experience working with clients, continuing education, and multiple certifications do. In this way, FitSpace is benefitting both personal trainers and clients by ensuring quality, trainer-client fit, and efficient advertising and searching for this fit.

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EXPLORING THE COMPETITION

I did a competitive analysis for four main competitors. I looked at the current features they offer, payment systems/fees, functionality of the site, and trainer profiles. Overall, there are competitors in the market but they are out of date, don’t account for elite trainers that need to stand out and raise their prices, and don't have an efficient process for both the clients and trainers money and time wise.

UNDERSTANDING THE USERS

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DETERMINING THE PAIN POINTS

This is an affinity map of main user pain points and current solutions from my 5 personal trainer interviews. I found these interviews to be incredibly insightful and useful for my persona and idea mapping for the most important features.

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MEET COURTNEY AND DANIEL

My next step was to determine the type of people that I was designing for. Based on the research and insight from user interviews, two user personas were developed. Having both users in mind throughout the design process ensured that I made decisions that would benefit the end user.

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PRIORITIZING THE FEATURES

Thinking of features to add to the website was easy but trying to prioritize them was somewhat difficult. I needed to prioritize these features in terms of price of these features, and level of need, ranging from necessity to luxury. The most important features are the ones that will help highlight the trainers and make the search function as easy and efficient as possible.

In my interviews with the trainers, their education, experience, and personal websites/social media links were noted as the most important on their profiles. Next, a mapping feature, and reminders and alerts could be added. Lastly, a premium subscription could be added in which trainers could get access to premium features such as posting their training programs for purchase, and be guest writers on our blog. We would also increase advertising on the website.

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RESTRUCTURING THE USER FLOW

I also had users complete a card sorting exercise for me with all the pages from the website. I had them group the cards as well as label the categories that they grouped them in. This was the most common grouping of the pages and it gave me insight into my users categorization process.

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USER TESTING

With my paper prototypes, (below) I had users perform a task such as searching for a trainer or creating an account and trainer profile. This helped me see the flaws in my designs, as well as see the holes in my user flows. Originally I hadn’t thought about having clear back buttons, or how the pages would look different for new and existing users. Having the main user flows really helped in the building of the low fidelity prototypes.

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SKETCHES

Here are my initial sketches that I used for my card sorting exercises and helped me polish out what I needed in my low fidelity prototypes.

These are three of my key screens from my first prototypes. This was my first time using Sketch and my sizing and spacing was very off to say the least. I had fun learning how to use the program and got better with each round of testing.

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USER TESTING TAKEAWAYS

• Distinguish shapes between clickable and non-clickable items
• Change hamburger bar to home page icon
• Make search bar more apparent since it is a major user flow
• Make questionnaire more clear

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DESIGN CHANGES

The main design changes are seen on these three pages. The first is the Questionnaire page (wireframe on the left). I added a gradient to the bar to show the progression of the questionnaire, a different ”next” button, and a skip button for users that want to go straight to the search page after creating an account.

Second is the home page (wireframe in the center). I changed the hamburger menu bar to the FitSpace logo with its sole function being to take the user Home. I then made the search bar larger and more apparent by adding a bubble and text inside it.

Third is the How It Works page for trainers (wireframe on the right). I differentiated the clickable from the non-clickable items by removing the shapes around them and making all of the clickable items the same shape throughout the website. Consistency is incredibly important in the user’s experience.

RESULTS

Embedded content: https://youtu.be/2ufEOBUyHGE

RETROSPECTIVE

I came back to this project almost two years later to give this another try. I would have done a lot of things differently looking back at this and made these changes.

The main changes I made were to separate the flows between trainer and client and focus on the clients. I moved the links for trainers in the navigation and footer. Secondly, I changed it so that users are not forced to scroll through a how it works page and make an account before browsing trainers. Thirdly, I removed the questionnaire since the user should be in charge of the matching.