Project Overview
COMPANY
Age Bold is a fitness tech startup which provides personalized online class platform for older adults. They help people improve balance, strength, and mobility from the comfort of their own homes.
BUSINESS GOALS
Maintain active users and decrease drop rate during the 8 week program
Create excitement and incentive by building a shareable Badge system
Help users feel a sense of achievement, and motivate them to exceed their own fitness expectations.
ROLE
Product Designer, User Research, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Usability Testing, Prototyping
DURATION
Sep - Nov 2019
Challenge
With 1 in 4 older adults falls every year, there is a way we can help them to prevent it. The risk of falls can be reduced by up to 43% by regular exercise and balance training. Aging is inevitable but getting weaker doesn’t have to be.
Age Bold’s solution was to provide 8 week program with classes combine research-backed principles with engaging, expert trainers for a fitness community built to last. The classes are specifically designed to improve balance, strength, and mobility with safe and effective exercise.
Discovery & User Research
With very minimal prior research done by the client, we planned and went to SF senior center on conducting exploratory research to understand seniors’ behavior and motivation.
We recruited six users who fit the target demographic which were 65 to 82 who have exercise hobbies .
COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
We also performed competitor/comparator analysis on a variety of finance digital fitness products in order to gain a better understanding of the competitive landscape.
User Personas
Analysis of insights and prioritization issues
SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS
After conducting user interviews, and analyzing the gathered data from research, our team was able to categorize the insights into these 3 areas where seniors caring about and how Age Bold should consider during design.
ACTIONABLE RESULTS
- Keeping the badges and gamification as simple and clear as possible will be key. It's important to enlarge fonts and buttons to ensure easier legibility and accessibility.
- Adding personalization, praises, encouragements, and allowing others from the Age Bold community to provide motivating gestures to each other can be effective. Example: badge for getting X amount of high five/claps, adding encouraging words with positive colors and sounds throughout the workout
- Having educational pop ups on how the program reduces physical pain and upkeeps mobility would be helpful in encouraging older adults to power on.
Ideate & Iterations
Final Screens
DASHBOARD
This is the home screen where users can have a quick view of their most recent gained badges and able to access the badge gallery.
Adding personalization by greeting the user and with encouraging quote.
BADGE GALLERY
We keep the design of the badge tile simple and clear by ensure the size of tile to a bigger scale to ensure the accessibility.
SINGLE BADGE VIEW
When users clicking on the badge tiles, it turn into a modal showing the detail of badge including the name, logic behind it and receiving date. Showing more information on the single badge modal to ensure the legibility.
ASSESSMENT BAR
Redesign the assessment bar with brand color to keep the consistence and using positive copy for motivation.
Prototype
Results
We conducted usability test with 5 users in San Francisco Ferry Building and below were what we found.
BADGE SYSTEM
1/5 users found that receiving a badge was a motivational catalyst for them to work out again.
4/5 users found that receiving a badge was superficial and not motivational
ASSESSMENT BAR
3/4 user found the assessment bar to be satisfactory and clear.
3/5 user found the assessment bar to be motivating and encouraging in continuing their fitness goals.
PRAISE COPY AND VISUAL
4/5 users appreciate the positive words of encouragement, however, having an option to turn them off would be a nice touch.
4/5 users thought the visuals were easy to understand
Final Learnings and Next Steps
OPPORTUNITIES WE FOUND
WHY THIS DIDN'T WORK OUT?
Our target demographic, older adults from 60-85, do not like working in their home. They prefer walking, for the purpose of being in touch with outdoors and the community
It's not important for our users to track their personal fitness goals
They do not see badges as a token of motivation but rather a superficial reward, like "participation award"
Personalization is extremely important to older adults, whether its the ability to report pain, tweaking the class based on pain, or just feeling like they are heard
A personable instructor is one factory that is important to older adults. They are hoping for someone that is professional yet caring, to guide them through intimidating moves with the understanding of their recent pain or constraint.
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