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Fitness App Redesign and Evolution Completed in 4 Months
About Our Customer
The Customer is a promising US startup running a digital fitness platform. The platform allows fitness specialists to sell and promote their training programs, while fitness enthusiasts can access these workouts via in-app purchases.
Dealing with Low User Engagement and Software Bugs
The Customer already had a functioning mobile application but reported poor customer satisfaction and app adoption due to several reasons:
- Inconsistent user experience design and non-intuitive user interface.
- Functional bugs. For example, there were issues with saving and synchronizing user progress.
- Poor app performance. The application was slow and consumed too many hardware resources, the app crashed frequently.
Apart from resolving these problems, i.e., conducting a complete UX and UI redesign, debugging the app, and improving its overall performance and functioning, the Customer wanted to upgrade the app’s functionality and grow the user base. So, the Customer was looking for professional UX and UI consulting and cross-platform development assistance.
Redesigning the App. Expanding the Feature Set
Trusting ScienceSoft’s 17 years of experience in mobile app development, the Customer commissioned us to redesign and upgrade its mobile app for iOS and Android. ScienceSoft assembled a team that included a project manager, a lead business analyst, a senior UX/UI designer, a senior Xamarin developer, and a senior .NET developer.
UX audit. UX and UI redesign
To spot problems with user experience and create a new, logical UX design that would meet the needs of the app users, our business analyst thoroughly studied the application and its target audience during the discovery phase. She reconfirmed two target groups of users:
- Fitness specialists. They use the app to convert exercise content into customizable audiovisual workout programs, then publish, promote, and sell such programs in the online store.
- Fitness enthusiasts. They use the app to purchase workout programs and employ them in their exercise routines.
A close examination of the users’ wants and needs helped determine the reasons for low user engagement. Among the discovered problems were: ineffective onboarding tutorials and walk-throughs; lack of incorporated tooltips and help messages; unintuitive placing and an unnecessary multitude of buttons; absence of spinning loaders, haptic or textual feedback (e.g., Please wait, Loading…) when the buttons are clicked; an illogical grouping of related elements (e.g., logout, settings, access and password), etc.
Based on the results of the UX audit, our UX/UI designer defined the most suitable redesign strategies to better cater to the expectations of both the current and new app users and make their journey in the app consistent and enjoyable. The designer reworked the information architecture of the app and modified user workflows. She closely collaborated with the Customer at this stage: all the design iterations were meticulously carried out based on the Customer’s input. For instance, the Customer was willing to share detailed suggestions for interactive prototypes, which ScienceSoft was happy to implement.
UI improvements were also made, e.g., the designer used color and contrast for elements to manage the focus of the users’ attention, improved white spacing between interface elements to define blocks of information more clearly, and added hover controls.
As a result, all the spotted users’ pain points were addressed.
New functionality
The next step of the project was upgrading the app with new functionality. ScienceSoft’s business analyst elicited the Customer’s requirements and suggested third-party integrations to be added. She also assisted the developers in selecting the most cost-efficient tech stack, which was very important for the Customer due to budget limitations.
Sticking to the Scrum methodology with one-week sprints, our team debugged the app and expanded the existing feature set. The final product had the following functionality:
- Program creation and uploading: using the app, fitness specialists can turn their training materials into audio and video workout programs, upload them to the in-app online store, and sell them to consumers.
- Program selection and purchase: the consumers can choose and buy one or several programs in the store.
- Ratings and reviews for fitness specialists: keep-fit enthusiasts can leave ratings and reviews of the purchased programs.
- Workout customization: fitness program users can add or remove exercises, change repetitions, and set time and distance targets based on their needs.
- Audio, video, and voice guidance: exercisers can receive recommendations from an AI-powered assistant in the form of purely audial instructions or those additionally accompanied by a video (e.g., on what exercise to do next). They can also switch between exercises by giving voice commands.
- On-screen controls and one-touch performance recording: fitness program users can advance, pause, and skip exercises, as well as record their workout sessions with just one touch.
- GPS or manual distance tracking: app users can track their jogging progress with the help of GPS or by manually entering the covered distance.
- Instructional videos and additional fitness information from specialists: all exercises have links to videos demonstrating how to perform the exercises correctly. Fitness specialists provide further valuable information on workout routines free of charge to maintain high user engagement.
- Dashboards for progress tracking: users can log their training sessions, leave notes to exercise sets, and see their workout time, thus having a full record of each completed workout.
- Instant payment processing via the connected payment gateways (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shopify).
Delivering a Market-Ready App that is Loved by Users
The Customer received the redesigned and upgraded fitness app in just 4 months and was highly satisfied with the end product. The Customer launched beta testing to gather feedback on the new app from focus groups. The tests have shown that the delivered solution fully meets the target users’ expectations and is ready to enter the market.
