FitVenture

Project

FitVenture: A fitness-tracking app with video game elements to motivate the users to exercise more often

Timeline

13 Weeks (January - April 2021)

Role

Interaction Designer

Approach

Goal-Directed Design

Introduction

For my Senior Capstone course in one of my last semesters at Kennesaw State, we worked in groups to develop a prototype throughout the semester using a Goal-Directed Design (GDD) approach. Goal-Directed Design is a process that designs & develops a product based on the goals of users through the phases of research, modeling, requirements, and frameworks.

Near the beginning of the semester, we formed groups to decide on what project we would create and how we would plan to do it. Our team lead, Mason Ham, had the idea of developing an app that used leveling up and video games as an incentive to get people to be more productive. To narrow down our scope for the product, we decided to focus on the exercise element of productivity to create a fitness-tracking app that incentives the users to complete their workouts by improving their in-game character’s statistics, items, and skills whenever they complete their workouts.

Since this course was a hybrid course (both in-person and online), we held team meetings during class time as well as utilizing Discord group chats and calls to message each other and hold virtual meetings. To remain organized, we used Miro as a space to hold our research, wireframes, and everything related to the project throughout the semester. For the whole project, we collaborated and helped one another to navigate through the Research, Modeling, Requirements, and Frameworks phases to design a functional prototype supported by a strong base of research and development.

View Prototype

Research ➔ Modeling ➔ Requirements ➔ Frameworks ➔ Testing ➔ Refinement

Research

The first step of Goal-Directed Design is the Research Phase. In this phase, we explore the realm of our product, potential user motivations, and our competitors. This phase is important as it lays down a strong foundation to build upon for the rest of the project. The structure for our research phase was broken down into a kickoff meeting, lit review, competitive audit, and user interviews.

Kickoff Meeting

Since this is a school project with no real stakeholders, we held our own virtual kickoff meeting to discuss our problem space and what we are solving for. The problem statement we finalized as a team was, “Currently, fitness and role-playing game (RPG) apps have focused on solely keeping track of exercises & providing entertainment. What these apps fail to provide is motivation & health benefits at the same time. Our product will address this gap by combining RPG and fitness app elements into one app.”

Lit Review & Competitive Analysis

The goal of our lit review was to find documents and articles that have already explored our problem space to educate ourselves on current discoveries. We split the group’s research in half to look for studies about people’s motivations to exercise and half for people’s motivation to play RPGs. I personally researched motivation regarding exercise and learned that key motivators for people to exercise include health, sense of accomplishment, appearance, and mental health. The sense of accomplishment factor validated our assumptions that video games can motivate users to exercise more as they are accomplishing both their exercise and the features of the game at the same time.

Our competitive audit was targeted at analyzing the positives and negatives of similar apps. We all analyzed Habitica (an RPG that focuses on improving productivity) and MyFitnessPal (a fitness-tracking app), along with an app of our choice. The app I chose was FitBod, a fitness-tracking app that lets you customize your workouts. We met as a group to discuss our findings together and make note of what the apps do well and where we can fill the gaps they fail to address.

User Interviews

To gain insight into user behavior and motivations, we conducted four user interviews through Discord and Microsoft Teams. Our target demographic for these interviews was anybody who exercises or used to exercise that also plays RPGs.

From the interviews, we discovered common trends such as the way that fitness-tracking apps can intimidate beginners with jargon and too much specificity. We also learned that with RPGs, the sense of accomplishment and progression are key motivators for the user to continue playing.

After organizing our notes and discoveries, we moved to the Modeling Phase. This is where we create our personas to refer to when designing the app.

Modeling

The main goal of the Modeling Phase is constructing an efficient persona for the app based on our prior research. Personas are a valuable tool in the design process because they help us design for specific individuals with specific needs. Since design is never guesswork, we need to be clear on who will be using our app throughout the remainder of the process.

In this phase, we organized our findings and noticed two trends from our research. One being the exercise-focused user who plays RPGs on the side, and the other being the user who plays more RPGs and seeks motivation to exercise.

Personas

Our primary persona is Robert Smith, a college student who exercises infrequently but wants to get fit. He has a hard time establishing a routine because he gets intimidated by the terminology and confusion of when and how to exercise. He still enjoys exercising because it improves his mental health and helps him feel a sense of accomplishment. Robert also plays a multitude of RPGs from online to tabletop games. He finds a sense of accomplishment in escapism where he can relate himself to the character in the game.

The secondary persona we constructed is Doug Jones, a college student who exercises on his own but has gotten more fit from sports. He likes to exercise to improve his appearance and athleticism. He likes to play RPGs in his free time but does not play as often as Robert. His main reason for playing games is to be able to customize his character’s appearance and upgrade his skills as he progresses.

Requirements

In the Requirements Phase, the “what” of Interaction is established by our team. For this process, we constructed a requirements list that consists of what is needed for our personas to succeed. With this list, we brainstormed different scenarios in which the app would be used and where each item on the requirements list would be regarding each specific context. After we finished our requirements list and context scenarios, we could use our foundation to create the framework of our prototype.

Frameworks

Using our findings from the previous three phases, we moved on to the Frameworks Phase. Before designing any screens, we created a layout and navigational architecture using virtual sticky notes through Miro.

After assigning different sections among the group, we all worked together to create a low-fidelity prototype for testing. The section I was worked on was the exercise logs.

Testing

After having a functional low-fidelity prototype, we tested with four potential users of the app to get initial feedback before refining our product into a high-fidelity prototype. Some key takeaways we learned from our testing is that there was confusion between the connection of the video game and exercise elements and our icons were difficult to recognize.

Conclusion

If I were to redo this project, there are some items I would change in my process to improve the overall efficiency and end-result. For the app itself, I would've taken only some of the elements of the app to focus on. Simplifying the concept would allow for more focus in the areas in both the research and design stages. Also, in the final design, there are some inconsistencies throughout different pages. To fix this, I would've had us create a design system early on to implement throughout the entire prototype, creating a more cohesive product.

Over the course of this project, I improved my collaboration, time-management, and prototyping skills. I enjoyed working with a talented team throughout the semester to complete this project. The process was fun and seeing the final product be realized near the end is always a great feeling.