Motimate
Inclusive fitness solution that motivates and supports women in reaching their exercise goals through engaging visual and information design
Project Details
Role
Duration
Background
Everyone deserves the opportunity to feel comfortable in their workout environment and achieve their fitness goals. But all too often, the confines of gym culture create barriers that hinder inclusivity. That's where Motimate comes in, determined to shatter these boundaries and pave the way for a more inclusive fitness community.
User Interviews
To empower women to achieve their fitness goals, it was essential to understand their feelings about fitness and the challenges they face. This step aimed to gather insights on why fitness goals were not being met.
User interviews allowed me to gain rich qualitative insights where I could hear first hand their personal stories. I conducted Zoom interviews with 8 women who work out or want to start, in order to gain qualitative insights.
User interviews revealed that many women find it difficult to meet fitness goals due to a lack of motivation caused by:
Literature Review
I wanted to know what methods would be best to increase their motivation, so I did my research and reviewed existing studies. From the American Society for Training and Development, a study showed that having a specific accountability appointment increases the likelihood of completing a goal to 95%.
From research, I learned that the reason women were not meeting their workout goals was due to a lack of motivation. If I could somehow increase women’s motivation levels, I could help more women meet their goals. So from now on, I focused on creating a fitness solution that would increase motivation to help them meet their goals.
Ideation
Since I learned everything I wanted to know from research, I wanted to brainstorm different solutions before heading into visual design (mainly since I wouldn’t know what to design if I hadn't thought of a solution :P).
My main focus was increasing motivation within women, so I looked into existing features that helped with increasing motivation. I ended up proceeding with the following ideas, factoring in motivation, accountability, and time:
Concept Validation
I wanted to see whether the ideas I came up with would resonate with my target audience. In order to ensure that the ideas resonated with the users’ pain points and needs, I concept tested these ideas with my users to gather feedback.
Sketches
In order to visualize the layout and flow of the features in preparation of hi fi wireframes, I produced sketches that outlined the features in the previous step.
Ideation generated abstract concepts, but sketches translated those ideas into tangible, interactive designs.
Design System
In order to keep components consistent throughout the entire app, I developed a design system that aligned with the branding as well as accessibility standards. I used the design system to keep the UI clean and consistent, making sure my components are set up so that I could potentially scale my design.
Hi Fi Considerations
As one of my core values and something I try to factor in all my designs, I focused on ensuring the design’s accessibility and usability. It was especially important in this project, since the app highlights inclusivity and embracing the minority.
With only 2 weeks remaining, I considered these two factors to further ensure cohesiveness and accessibility, since they were the most time effective :
1. Designing for accessibility: spacing, typography, color
2. Designing with Gestalt Principles
Seeing progress motivates users to complete their goals, so I wanted a way to display their goals and progression. To keep this data simple, I opted for a line chart since users can actually see a change in data due to the high and low peaks.
I considered the following factors from research: less intimidation and more accountability. The solution features an activity feed to increase accountability by allowing friends to track each other's progress and check in with one another. Additionally, the workouts can be done outside the gym, reducing intimidation and making fitness more accessible.
Feeling under the weather? The last thing anyone wants to do is workout when menstrual cramps are at a high. The app implements recovery days to keep users motivated when they’re feeling better. Take a breather and come back even better!
Presentation and Impact
Reflection and Takeaways
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Contribution: I have always wanted to be part of creating change but often wondered how much impact one person can truly have. This project showed me that even a small initiative can make a significant difference. I was able to positively impact 80% of my target audience, many of whom were likely facing the same challenges. I want to continue finding solutions to problems, no matter how small or big.
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Time: With only 4 weeks to complete the project, the shortest deadline I've ever faced, I had to prioritize certain steps over others. This meant not following every step of the double diamond method, focusing instead on the most crucial elements. Understanding the "why" behind each step became more important than strictly adhering to the process since time was so limited.