Motiv
A Health & Fitness Tracking Application
Motiv aims to be a personal companion for staying active and motivated. With intuitive tools and tailored support, Motiv helps turn small steps into big achievements.
Challenges
There are countless ways to collect health and fitness data using smartphone apps, wearable devices like fitness trackers, or sampling tools such as glucose monitors. However, users often face challenges such as:
Remembering to sync their device with their smartphone app.
Interpreting the collected data to identify potential issues.
Setting meaningful health and fitness goals and staying on track.
Sharing their health and fitness data with healthcare professionals effectively.
Many health and fitness apps offer robust tracking features, but they often fall short in usability and user engagement. Common issues include overwhelming interfaces, lack of personalized insights, and difficulty integrating data across devices. Through user interviews and competitive analysis, I explored these challenges to identify how Motiv could better address the needs of users—empowering them to make meaningful progress without the frustration.
Research Goals
Goal 1
Enhancing Usability & User Engagement
Assess the usability of existing health and fitness apps and identify opportunities for improvement.
Examine strategies to improve app usage consistency and overall user engagement.
Understand how users set and adhere to health/fitness goals and track their progress.
How are people currently engaging with health and fitness tracking apps? To learn this, I conducted user interviews both in-person and virtual interviews via Zoom.
Conducted in-person and remotely.
Participants from various ages, marital statuses, genders, and occupations.
Data was synthesized and analyzed.
Objectives
Simplify Health Tracking: Provide a seamless and intuitive way to collect, sync, and visualize health and fitness data from multiple devices in one place.
Empower User Growth: Help users set achievable goals, interpret their data, and take actionable steps to improve their health and fitness journey.
Researching
Goal 2
Optimizing Data Utilization & Health Outcomes
Evaluate how effectively users utilize and interpret the data collected by health and fitness apps.
Investigate how app data can be used to recognize and address potential health problems.
Explore the processes for sharing health and fitness data with healthcare professionals and peers to enhance health outcomes.
Interviewing Users on Current Health & Fitness App Usage
Goal 3
Goal Setting & Adherence
Identify any friction or issues users face, including challenges with sticking to goals..
Explore why some users might not be using these apps and what prevents them from doing so.
Evaluate how users currently set goals and their expectations or themselves.
“If I can’t customize it, I don’t want it”
During the interviews, an interesting and common occurrence showed that some very active people do not use health and fitness apps often. These users are usually confident in their fitness and health journey and do not think there are features within these apps that could benefit them.
Common Themes Found Through Interviews
Personalization
All participants expressed that personalization if very important to them for their experience with health and fitness apps. The reason range from personalized workouts dependant on age, height, and weight to building workouts for specific muscles groups and goals.
Visualizations
Many users expressed liking visualizations for reminders, progress, and trends.
Also, all users said that they find the app reminders useful and not an annoyance.
Time
Lack of time is consistently the biggest struggle user face when trying to stick to routines and goals for their health and fitness.
Goal Setting
Almost all said that setting goals is easy but they also all say they have trouble sticking to their goals. This leads me to believe that setting goals is not as easy as they think. They are setting goals but not realistic ones.
Data Sharing
All users stated they would share their data directly from their apps with their
doctor.
Though a couple admit it could help for some competition and motivation or help redefine fitness.
Companion Apps
Most health and fitness apps were either already on their phone, with their smart watch, with their local gym, or at-home exercise equipment like the Peloton.
Daily Use
Even if users are not super health or fitness-minded, or feel that they are not sticking to their goals and routines, they still check their apps daily.
Unaware of Full Capabilities
Many are unaware of what their apps are able to do, which ones can be connected, and what devices they can be used on
In summary, user are not often aware of the full extent of capabilities
Relying on External Sources
Many participants expressed not being very knowledgeable about health and fitness. In turn, these participants stated they rely on external sources to help guide them and inform them.
Others find motivation from external sources.
Building Empathy
Understanding the needs, frustrations, and motivations of users is at the heart of designing meaningful experiences. To truly connect with the people who would benefit from Motiv, I created a detailed user persona based on research insights. This persona helps bring the user’s perspective into focus, guiding design decisions that prioritize empathy and usability.
