After discovering a noticeable decline in gym memberships a team set out to redefine the way modern people train.
Usage of our solution helped busy people receive certified personal training, even while traveling. Within only 6 months, our mobile app gained 25k downloads.
MY ROLE
UX/UI Designer (Contractor)
PLATFORM
Mobile (IOS & Android)
TEAM
5-person Team (CEO, COO, CTO)
TIMELINE
Aug 2016 - Aug 2017
The information/opinions/decisions shared within this case study are my own and may or may not represent the opinion(s) or decisions practiced by RenewU.
THE SITUATION
BACKGROUND
Meet Kim, a traveling saleswoman with an extremely hectic lifestyle.
Kim spends most of her days on the road, moving from one client meeting to another across different cities. Her packed calendar of appointments, calls, and events leaves minimal personal time as she balances sales targets and key account relationships.
Despite her health-consciousness, Kim struggles to maintain fitness due to her unpredictable schedule. Inconsistent hotel gym quality and frequent lack of accessible facilities make it impossible to commit to regular workouts. Her physical well-being suffers as her professional obligations take priority.
THE PROBLEM
It's extremely inconvenient for busy
people to make time for working out
In 2016, gym memberships experienced a significant decline of approximately 7% compared to the previous year. The decline signaled a shift in how people approached their fitness routines, moving away from traditional gym settings toward more flexible and personalized options.
Many individuals couldn't commit to regular gym attendance due to busy lifestyles and demanding schedules. Many also felt uncomfortable exercising in public, especially beginners, those with body image concerns, or introverts. These time constraints and psychological barriers created a market gap that traditional fitness facilities failed to address.
MY ROLE
Sole UX/UI, working with C-suite team.
From 2016 - 2017, I worked on the 5-person RenewU team. I had the privilege of working alongside founders Kim Klafczynski and Tommy Simmons, to build the future of Personal Training.
THE SOLUTION
The "Uber" of Personal Training: allowing busy people to easily book certified trainers that come to them
RenewU empowers users to book personal training sessions straight from their mobile phones. Once a session is booked, similar to Uber, RenewU will prompt the trainer to come to the client to fulfill the workout session - anytime + anywhere.
FEATURE 1
Upfront Personalization
As a user, I want my training to be more tailored to my needs so that I can stay motivated often.
My design answers this need by empowering:
My design facilitated this need by onboarding the user with a personalized questionnaire, asking them about their goals and interests - to help tailor their overall exploration and personal training experience.
FEATURE 2
Explore Comfortably
As a user, I want to browse trainers easily, so that I can confidently find the one most appealing to me.
My designs facilitated this need by giving flexible exploration systems (list/map views), a malleable filtering system, and valuable trainer data upfront.
FEATURE 3
Seamless Booking
As a user, I want an easy scheduling process, so that I can efficiently book my training sessions.
My design facilitates this need by offering an intuitive and easy to use "amazon-like" checkout process with built-in time flexibility, personalization, and tracking.
SITUATION
INITIAL DISCOVERY
Interviewing busy people to
discover the reason behind
their decision to forego gyming.
I interviewed a small sampling of 30 participants who recently forfeited their physical gym memberships. The process helped me break the ice regarding the various pains and frustrations that lead people to their decision.
SOME QUESTIONS I ASKED
• Why did you decide to forfeit your gym membership?
• What alternatives do you use to replace the gym?
• What things do your alternatives still lack in?
• What would your ideal workout journey look like?
DATA COMPILATION
Organizing and making sense of the vast amount of information gathered from user interviews.
Affinity mapping allowed me to identify common themes and patterns in the user's needs, challenges, and goals.
By grouping related observations, I was able to gain deeper insights into our target audience's overall fitness journey.
The information was then synthesized and narrowed down to 3 critical insights, which in turn informed the overall scope, design and development of our proposed solution.
DATA SYNTHESIS
Aggregating critical insights into personas to humanize our users.
Personas allowed us to visualize & humanize data collected, providing a clear & coherent structure for our design thinking.
They ensured that our insights were user-centered, aligned with our users' expectations, and addressed their challenges. Additionally, they made all the research findings presented
to the "non-designer" business stakeholders more digestible.
TASK
PRODUCT-MARKET FIT
Workshopping to align user
needs with effective solutions
As a team, we crafted a value proposition canvas, so that we could collectively address our target audience's needs by brainstorming effective solutions for their problems.
The exercise was an excellent way to reference all of our user insights and align them to relevant business solutions.
We all eventually came to the consensus, that we should build the "Uber of personal training" - Empowering users to book sessions with certified personal trainers that come to them and easily review their progress.
THE FRAMEWORK
Mapping out user/task flows to
best illustrate the user journey
To kick off the design phase, instead of building out a sitemap,
I decided to create task flows; as they would help best illustrate
the journey users would take - from browsing to booking trainers:
• Browsing: The journey users would take to find a personal trainer
• Booking: The journey users would take to book a training session
ACTION / TESTING
DESIGN IDEATION
Sketching out flows helped me brainstorm potential solutions
Wireframes were an essential step to illustrate the layout and interaction of our screens, ensuring that they would effectively meet our users' needs, while providing clarity to the team regarding the interface.
The process helped me constantly iterate on my designs via consistent team feedback sessions, ensuring a shared understanding of my design rationale and progression. I went through about 4 iterations for each critical task flow.
DIGITAL WIREFRAMES
Transitioning to a mid-fidelity to expand and digitize interface
The transition from paper wireframes to mid-fidelity designs enhanced UI visualization, providing precise layout, controls, and typography - while also adding further detail to each screen.
This decision enhanced team communication and would allow us to conduct user tests with a more realistic representation of the final product, which would yield more reliable feedback.
Hence, naturally, my next step was converting my designs into an interactive prototype to commence usability testing phase.
USABILITY TESTING
Testing with real people to identify pitfalls & validate design decisions
We invited 10 testers and observed their behaviors and reactions to my proposed design solution. The goal of our testing was to examine the intuitiveness, usefulness, and engagement of the app. We wanted to measure if it easily and effectively helped users achieve their goals.
In order to accurately measure our application's usability and UI, we employed 2 specific testing methods: Observational testing and A/B testing.
OBSERVATIONAL TESTING
Observing flow interactions
to identify areas of friction
During observation, we had users navigate two specific flows: browsing & booking. This allowed us to observe how users went about exploring the app while understanding all their thought processes when reserving time with a trainer of their choice.
Some feedback the testers gave:
“I want a map view, so I can see trainers near me."
“I want more info on my trainers before I book them.”
"The app makes working out super convenient for me."
A/B TESTING
Deciding between two options for the in-app personalization
During the design process, I came to a crossroad regarding user personalization. We had to choose between two options:
• Integrating personalization before users start exploring the app
• Allowing users to input their preferences later in the experience
To make an informed decision, I decided to conduct an A/B test. By identifying which version users responded best to, we could more informatively and accurately decide the app's ideal user experience.
OPTION A
Users participate in a personalized onboarding after signing up for the app. Based on their responses, the system would tailor their experience according to their needs (which they can further adjust or develop as they grow, if they choose).
OPTION B
Users receive no personalized onboarding and are instead taken directly to the app after signing up. From this point forward, users have to manually input any preferences they have on a per-use basis, which tracks needs on-demand.
COMPILING FEEDBACK
Aggregating tester feedback to
identify areas to improve upon
Feedback from testing was quite a mixed bag. However, all points, both positive and negative, definitely constructively contributed towards the improvement or validation of various design decisions.
The following feedback informed the app's success:
No Trainer Data
6/10 testers expressed that there was a severe lack in contextual trainer data, critical to users before they confidently booked a trainer. The process of simply choosing a trainer & being asked to book a session felt very incomplete.
No Browsing Views
5/10 testers voiced that while the map-view provided a visual and convenient way to find trainers nearby, a second view could provide a more "digestible" way for users to browse, while complementing the existing map-view.
"Onboarding is Great"
9/10 testers preferred the early onboarding UX (Option B), as it helped users input their goals, & preferences - making them feel heard and seen, while also personalizing their experience before they even start browsing.
DESIGN REVISIONS
Revised designs to address user
suggested feedback/enhancement
The insights gathered from the first testing round were incredibly helpful in guiding my design direction. They helped me identify crucial information that was missing within the flow, while also alluding to additional features that would drastically improve the flexibility of exploration.
Hence, I had to go back to the drawing board and revise my wireframes to address specific user needs that my proposed solution did not account for.
The following revisions elevated our user experience:
Flexible Exploration
To empower users on their exploration journey, I created
a list view to complement the map view. Users could now comfortably explore the experience and find any trainer, according to their preferred mode of browsing. Moreover, the decision helped me further simplify the app's interface.
Detailed Trainer Profiles
Information such as a trainers' qualifications, experience, and expertise was included as readable sections within trainer profiles. The decision helped add some much-needed context that users desired in order to feel confident & comfortable, before booking a personal training session.
After validating design revisions,
I finalized the UI in High-Fidelity
After revising the designs, I ran a secondary usability testing round to leave no stone unturned for our MVP launch. Thankfully, no additional usability issues were found, increasing my confidence in the design's overall effectiveness and usability.
The final step was transitioning from wireframes to high-fidelity. I used the company's brand guidelines to define the visual identity.
THE RESULT
THE OUTCOME
We reached 25k downloads
within 6 months of launching!
We launched RenewU 6 months after its conception. The app had a slow start, but eventually thanks to external marketing, momentum picked up and we gained a huge boost in the number of new signups.
Success metrics captured 3 & 6 months post-launch included:
25k
App downloads (within 6 months of launch)
85%
Activation Rate (3 months post-launch)
15k
Monthly Active Users (6 months post-launch)
62%
Retention Rate (3 months post-launch)
RECOGNITION
We were regarded as a "revolutionary
training app" on various news outlets.
RenewU was the only project I worked on that gained a TV spot on KTLA news network. Moreover, many online bloggers reviewed our app, wrote features and recommended our app to their huge following of website/blog readers.
