FairFit: Enabling a Better Gym Experience for Women

By: Gargi Panatula, Cade Dillon, Michelle Delgado-Alvarez, Meena Kuduva

Problem Overview

Colleges often provide gyms for their students as an accessible way to work out. However, for college-aged women trying out the gym for the first time, the fact that the gym is a historically male dominated space can make them feel unwelcome. In our research, 80% of college-aged women reported that they have felt like they lacked the skills needed to do certain exercises, or just did not feel comfortable entering certain spaces in the gym. 93% of these women reported that they would benefit from a community at the gym, but found that it was too hard to create one.

Solution

FairFit empowers college-aged women to find their place at the gym. FairFit’s community calendar makes it easy to find events, meet up with local gym enthusiasts, and build a community around working out. Our exercise explore page and detailed information cards break down even the most complex exercises, making it easy to explore different parts of the gym. These tools will allow our users to find a community and easily learn exercises, making fitness fair for everyone.

Paper Prototype, Testing Process, Results

After thorough research and mapping of the design space for our solution, we began work on a paper prototype rough draft. Based on our user research we identified two primary tasks that our solution should help users accomplish: finding someone to work out with and learning how to use new equipment/spaces in their gym. For the former, we designed a flow that had our users interacting with a calendar of upcoming events and classes in their area, which would also show which of their friends were also attending the event. Users could register for events, share events with other users, and chat with their friends in the app. For the latter task, users could scan QR codes in their gym to open an exercise information page where they could watch video tutorials and also get recommendations for other exercises to perform next.

After designing a draft prototype, we began performing usability tests to see where we could improve. We did a total of five tests, one in class with peers and the other four outside of class with friends and family. We made several major changes to our prototype design as a result of the feedback we received from these usability tests. The first was that we added a home button to our taskbar so that users could return to the home screen from any point in the task flow, which was something that every test pointed out would be a major improvement. Next, we streamlined the messaging flow from two different screens into a single screen to avoid redundancy and confusion. After that, we incorporated user suggestions to have exercises searchable via text or filter as well as the QR code look up. Users wanted this so they could do research about an exercise or piece of equipment without actually having to be in the gym to scan it. Finally, we made some tweaks to the calendar layout to give the user more visual cues about what was interactable and what was not. Below is our final paper prototype after revision:

Digital Mockup Overview

Below is a link to view FairFit’s digital mockup: https://www.figma.com/file/koEKO38Mm8F2bC6UiSXtw2/FairFit-Digital-Mockup?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&mode=design&t=CoNcf9aj28XAhmqL-1

After finalizing our paper prototype, we created a digital mockup of our design using Figma. Our initial digital design was essentially an exact replica of our paper prototype, only newly incorporating a cohesive color scheme and typography. The main elements of our design include an event calendar, which allows users to view, share, and register for events, an explore page to search for new exercises as well as an option to scan FairFit QR codes within the gym to learn exercises on the fly, and a friends list with a messaging system to allow users to keep in touch with potential gym-buddies. Although we did not add any major functionality while making our digital prototype, we did fine tune some details of our design, such as simplifying our taskbar and adding confetti to our “Registered!” page. As previously mentioned, the two primary tasks that our solution targets are (1) finding someone to work out with and (2) learning how to use new equipment/new spaces in their gym.

Digital Mockup Overview

Task 1: Finding Someone to Workout With

The photo above shows the flow for Task 1. When first opening the FairFit app, the user is led to the homepage. When clicking on the calendar icon in the taskbar, all events in the current week are listed. If a user clicks on an event, they are led to a page with details regarding the event, including a list of their friends that are attending. From this page, users can choose to message a friend who is attending the event using the message button by each attendee, or to register for the class. Using this functionality, the user has the ability to meet and keep in touch with others who attend the same gym as them!

Task 2: Learning to Use New Equipment

The photo above shows the flow for Task 2. When the user first opens the FairFit app, they land on the homepage. By clicking on the magnifying glass in the task bar, they are redirected to the explore page, where they can search for exercises, scan FairFit QR codes in their gym, or choose one of the suggested exercises listed on the search page. Once they search/scan their desired exercise, an in-depth tutorial video is displayed, as well as a diagram that shows which muscles the chosen exercise targets. There is also an “Up Next” section, which suggests exercises the user can do next. Through these features, users have a convenient way to learn new exercises and an incentive to explore intimidating areas in the gym!

Summary

In summary, as a group we identified an opportunity to improve the health and wellbeing for some members of our campus community by empowering them to feel comfortable in their local gym. Through a combination of user research and iterative design, we developed a solution in the form of the FairFit mobile app which allows users to form a community with others who also go to their gym and get video explanations and tutorials about their gym equipment and effective exercises. We developed an initial paper prototype for the app which attempted to capture the user experience of completing the tasks outlined above and then refined the prototype based on feedback we received from our peers and larger community. Finally, we adapted our final prototype design into a high-fidelity digital mockup which effectively simulates the experience of using FairFit. We are hopeful that if FairFit were to be fully implemented, it would be a powerful tool that young female gym goers could use to find a community in their gym and overcome the learning barrier in exercise so that they could build a regular gym practice and improve their physical and mental health.