Buff Ban Be
A Weight Lifting Accountability App
ROLE
UX Researcher
UX | UI Designer
TOOLS
Figma | Miro
Procreate
DATE
2022
December
Illustrator
Summary
HMW encourage people who are weight lifting by themselves to feel like they are still making that commitment to someone?
Solution
Problem Discovery
Based on user interviews, some people are much more likely to lift weights if they told their friend they were going to go with them.
A weightlifting accountability app that aims to help users work out consistently. Users are given “pets” they can level up, strengthen, and earn badges along the way as they enter workout sessions. Users are also given the option of swapping pets with their friends. As users work out, their friend’s pet becomes stronger.
The Process
Background
Starting Point
Exercising consistently, including weight lifting, is a common New Year’s resolution. According to Forbes Magazine, 80% of people abandon their goals two months into the year.
What are other companies doing to help people develop the habit of weight lifting? Once we research what is already available, we can better understand how an app plays role in helping people struggling to lift consistently.
Our Competitors
The following products include the similar feature of selecting or entering the type of exercise, how many sets and reps were performed, and the amount lifted for that session. Here are some ways they stand out from each other:
Their Drawbacks
Similar to using pen and paper. Users can type the name of the exercise.
AI will give a custom workout that is based on the users exercise data.
Fitness Point
Simple Workout
Strong
Fit Bod
All exercises are thoroughly described using text descriptions and tutorials.
Allows users to easily add drop sets to the session log. Very convenient!
A multitude of in-app purchases and monthly or annual subscriptions. Additionally, some apps are geared towards seasoned lifters opposed to people who are just starting out that may need more guidance on how to perform the exercise with good form.
Understanding the Users
During the remote interviews, I spoke with people who established different levels of habit. Such as those who viewed their workout as ritual, others who skipped a couple days or weeks at a time due to life constraints, and those who were interested, but struggled with maintaining the emotional energy to keep lifting.
John
Lol having three kids! House work and chores are also never ending.
What demotivates you from lifting weights?
Jenny
Fran
Making time for the gym, and getting there.
Lack of sleep. Not seeing physical progress.
Taylor
User Interview Takeaways
Social Factors
Wants to contributing knowledge
Likes inspiring and being inspired by others
Spotlighting own acheivements feels good
Needs
Motivational notifications
Simple and easy to use
Has pre-made workouts and an ability to create own workout
Motivations to lift weights
Aesthetics
Improve physical & mental health
Being physically healthy for loved ones
Demotivating Factors
Full schedule
House renovations and chores
Young or newborn children to care for
Defining Users & Goals
Subverting Expectations!
What was surprising to learn was that the main reason some people went the gym was because they told their friend they were going to be there. They gave someone their word, which made them show up. For these people, they actually stopped going to the gym with their friend due to changes in their work schedule.
How might we...
Encourage people who are weight lifting by themselves to feel like they’re still making that commitment to someone? What if we gamified that experience?
Back to Market Research!
Those questions led me back to this part of the research phase to see what kind of gamified fitness apps exist and how these companies are doing it. There are fun ones that are story driven where you’re running away from zombies. Nexercise gives you points which can be exchanged for gift cards at participating stores, and PACT allows users to be paid if they stick to their goals. If they fail, then they pay out to the users who showed up and did their work out for the day.
Of these 3 apps, Pact hold users accountable and captures the idea of making that commitment to someone else. However, Pact is discontinued. Among the handful of pain points the user reviews brought up, some people said they had issues with being billed even though they completed their goals. This wasn’t a bad idea, it just seemed like the company's infrastructure to make this feature work wasn’t as smooth as it could be. At the end of the day, the good news is that there is less competition from companies who design fitness apps with the idea of getting users to feel committed towards each other.
Zombies, Run!
Audiobook is interspersed with recompiled music.
Pact
Performing daily steps can be counted as a completed workout.
Nexercise
Points can be exchanged for gift cards from stores (ex. Sephora, CVS).
Solution
After thinking about different ideas, I eventually came up with Buff Bạn Bè, a weightlifting accountability app that aims to help users work out consistently. Users are given “pets” they can level up, strengthen, and earn badges along the way as they enter workout sessions. In addition, users can also swap pets with their friends. As users work out, their friend’s pet becomes stronger.
User Storyboard
Placing the persona and solution within context helps to prioritize features for the minimal viable product.
Completing a Workout
Based on the interviews, the flow I wanted to capture was users starting a workout using a premade template. This would be similar to users walking into the gym with a plan of exercises they want to do, and check them off as they finish their workout sets. Another option that our users have is starting a spontaneous workout and filling out a blank template because they expressed that sometimes it's nice to have a less structured day at the gym. When users complete their workout, they hit finish, and that information is logged into their data.
Swap Pets with a Friend
The other flow I included was users swapping pets with friends. They would achieve this by clicking on the "Friends" icon in the bottom navigation bar, find & select the friend to swap pets with, and then hit that swap button that’s gonna be positioned at the top of the friends profile page.
Brand
The idea of incorporating pets led me to go in a playful and cartoony direction that gives off a fun vibe. In terms of naming, Ban Be means “friend” in Vietnamese. As your pet becomes stronger, it becomes your buff friend (^-^).
Ideas come to life!
Adopt Your Pet
Train with me!
User Testing
Ease of Completing Task
Many users clicked on their "pet" card on the dashboard in order to swap, instead of clicking on the friends icon on the bottom navigation.
Swap Pets with a Friend
Perform a spontaneous workout from a blank template
Perform workout
from a premade template
Observation and Feedback
I gathered participants that comprised of male and female weight lifters and non-weight lifters. All users completed each task successfully, however the ease of completion differed across the board, mainly due to confusion.
Having the checkmark turn from gray to black when selected did not make some users feel good after completing a set within an exercise.
Some users felt that the groups of information and hierarchy of text was not distinct enough, making the workout pages a little difficult to navigate.
Iterate
The following iterations were based on common problems users faced during testing. These changes are necessary to improve the overall user experience.
1.
Fix Workout Page
Before
After
Users were suggesting that not everything needed to be edited
A handful of users pointed out that they didn't know what to look at first because the content seemed evenly spaced from one another
Users didn't feel joy from seeing the checkmark turn from gray to black
Adding more space between exercises helps users visually focus which section they're working on
First text that users see due to size
"Legs" is now the first word people see. Subheading is also not editable on this page.
The check mark will turn from gray to green to convey a positive association when users complete their set
2.
Make Pet Swapping Easier
Users can now initiate the process of swapping pets by clicking on the pet card
Users can also click on the "Friends" icon to begin swapping pets!
Reflection
Pre-made Workout Screen
If there was more time, I would have really liked to explore different ways to design the pre-made workout page. Users who perceived the pre-made workout page as difficult to navigate agreed there should be a way to edit their workout in the scenario where a machine wasn't available. While the current layout made sense to them on the spontaneous workout page, it felt overwhelming on the premade workout page or gave too many options to edit.
more works