Emma: Case Study
A case study for EMMA: Exercise and Movement Motivation App
Target Group
Adults (18–30) who desire to exercise more throughout the day but can’t find the time to do so.
Introduction
We began with a habit tracking idea but quickly realized we needed to narrow down our project scope. Thus, we decided to focus on exercise habits. People have struggled to make exercise a priority in their lives and this has increasingly gotten more challenging during quarantine. We wanted to explore how to make exercing more accessible during the pandemic and beyond.
Background
To understand people’s current exercise habits, we ran a dairy study for 5 days with 8 participants (I had 2 participants) and asked each participant to report whether or not they exercised for at least 30 minutes each day. From this study, we were able to gather a general understanding of their exercise habits and found that our participants can be categorized into two groups: those who worked out a more than half of the 5 days and those that did not. One of my participants was a previous swimmer who stopped exercising due to the pandemic. I noticed that when her exercise levels were high, they were usually in the afternoon and involved hanging out with her friend. Other participants expressed that they did not have enough time to workout certain days or that they did not know what to do in order to exercise.
For our intervention dairy study, we asked our same participants to track their exercise levels for another 5 days. The difference now was that we sent them a YouTube workout video everyday and told them to complete it. Our videos ranged from 10min-15min and would increase by 1 minute everyday. We wanted to see that if we sent them a short video everyday, then they would not be able to make an excuse as to why they did not have time. We found that our intervention was very successful and all of our participants were able to complete the video.
Problem
After reviewing all of our personas, we focused on our target persona, Zahra, which encompassed struggles common throughout all of our participants. Our target user has been wanting to exercise but has found it difficult during the pandemic. They are very busy individuals and are not used to intensive workouts. Their main goal was not to excessively workout everyday or adjust their schedule dramatically to make time to workout. Our target users very much want to include some level of exercise in their day without compromising their daily responsibilities.
With this target user in mind, we brainstormed a variety of solutions to help them increase their exercise levels everyday.
Our team voted on our favorite ideas and narrowed down on the following concepts: gamification, cuzomization, and competition. To incorporate all of these concepts, we wanted to create an app that recommended short workout videos that our target user could easily find the time to complete in their day. These videos will be customized to the user and adapt to their preferences everyday. The app will also correlate a point system with the videos so that the user can compete with their friends.
Solution
As we began to invasion our app, we created wireflows, storyboards, and style tiles. Here are my visions for the app.
Storyboard
Meet our persona, Zahra. Her goal is to improve her physical health but finds herself too busy with work and responsibilities. Our storyboard explains how our app would remind her that she can take a 10 min break and exercise!
Wireflow
Our study discovered the notification being effective in reminding the user to exercise. I kept that idea but also adding a tag line noting how long the video was to remind the user how easy it would be to complete the video. Once the user clicks on the notification, they will have the option of starting the video that is recommended or choosing from a list of other personalized videos. Since we want to personalize the videos, I added a “rating” feature after the user completes their video. This feedback will help us be able to personalize the videos that our user enjoys the most. After they complete this, they will see the overview of their progress and videos that are coming next.
Moodboard
When we decided on the name Emma, I immediately thought about orange. For my mood board, I was inspired by other orange apps. I also envisioned illustrations in the app so I found apps that had professional and playful illustrations.
Style Tile
Here is our group style tile. We all agreed on the color orange and wanted to keep a positive and friendly aesthetic. Since our target group is potentially inimitated by working out, we made sure to prioritize the friendly vibe of the app and brand.
The Prototype
Before we created our Figma prototype, we developed a sitemap in order to organize all of the objectives of our app. We placed the workout videos in one page where the user can browse their recommended video of the day, other area focused videos, and the user can start a challenge with their friends. The leaderboard section will allow the user to compare their points with their friends. The progress section will allow the user to review their stats and their progress so far. Lastly, the profile page will allow the user to update their avatar and check on their friend list.
With our mood boards and style tiles in mind, we created our prototype in Figma. We priotized the workouts page, leaderboard page, and the progress page. We did not implement the profile page since it would be very standard and we could spend more time flushing out the other important pages.
Results
After completing the prototype, we preformed usability testing. In these tests we asked our participants to complete the following tasks:
- Start a workout
- View your progress
- See how you compare to your peers
Here are some of the issues and changed we discovered from our usability testing:
Problem 1: Points system was confusing
- Multiple people thought points would ordinarily be used to "get something" (e.g. buy something)
- Wasn't clear that points are just a metric to track progress for the leaderboard
- Fix: change "points" language to a word that doesn't imply transaction (e.g. "stars")
Problem 2: What is a challenge?
- Some were confused because you ultimately were presented with the same content
- The word “challenge” was confusing here, and users spent several minutes talking about what they think of when they hear “challenge”
- Fix: change “challenge” wording to reflect the fact that it’s just auto selection
Problem 3: What are friends for?
- If you didn’t start by seeing the leaderboard, then it wasn’t clear that you can work out with friends since the “add friend” logic is deep into the “start a challenge” flow
- Fix: integrate more throughout the app [e.g. nudges]
Conclusion
Overall, I enjoyed learning about behavior change and different ways to I could effectively change a person’s behavior. From our dairy study to the usability testing, I learned how to motivate users to increase their exercise habits one step at a time. I enjoyed seeing the progress of our participants in only 10 days and look forward to recognizing behavior change in apps I use everyday!
