Market Research
I started the project the looking into what is currently going on and what is lacking in the current market, by analyzing trends in the fitness industry and how competitors are tackling some of these issues.
I did this mainly via interviewing three groups of people — Elderly wish to stay fit and take care of their health (Target Market), Elderly who do physiotherapy exercise for medical reasons ( Target Market ) and Trainers (experts in the field).
Since Covid hit most elderly population have been confined to home which limited their physical activities.
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In the Post Covid world there has been a growing trend among elder population to be physically fit and healthy from the comfort of their home and surroundings.
Trend
Working out from anywhere
Trend Analysis: Key health and wellness trends in 2021
Online Training
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The success of online and virtual training has also opened up new perspectives for the foreseeable future, when the pandemic emergency has finally passed. Whether it's at home or at the gym, consumers want to follow their passions. while feeling like they're part of a community, which means working out with their favorite trainer or on their preferred virtual landscape
Personal Training
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One-on-one training has recently become more accessible at home, largely because it provides individualized programming focused around the client’s goals with regular fitness testing.
Tele Health
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With tele health growing adding some easy-to-use monitoring equipment to the video chat mix is allowing more older adults in particular to avoid hospitals too.
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Competitive Analysis and Positioning Matrix
Key Learnings
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Most of the apps that are currently out there in the market target young users and do not tackle the needs and technical requirements that elderly need in order to stay fit and healthy.
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Also elderly feel uncomfortable using those apps as it is complicated for them to navigate and do not trust the exercises offered since the exercises are unknown to them and are anxious regarding how it would affect their body without professional advice.
Ethnographic Research
Expert Interviews
Personal Trainer
Gym Instructor
Physiotherapist
" We specially curate exercises for the elderly based on their lifestyle, habits, needs, age, weight and medical conditions. We change exercises as per need by regulating how their bodies are reacting to it. "
" We advice personal training for the elderly as everyone's stamina, energy and goals are different. "
" We normally do not recommend elderly to do exercises without our supervision as most of them have incorrect posture while exercising, so we need to constantly keep an eye and assist them accordingly ."
User Interviews
Rajiv Shah
73 years old
"I do not follow any exercises from app or social media since I am afraid I might select the exercise that are not right for me as they are catered to younger population and might lead to injuries. So, I stick to the ones i know or take advise from friends and family "
Karen Williams
68 years old
" I like to do exercise on my own since its hard to match up timing with friends and everyones stamina and pace is different. Although I prefer to have a personal trainer but they are expensive and hard to follow through. "
Jody Holt
62 years old
" I was asked to come to the hospital everyday for the physiotherapy exercises for recovery due to my operation. However the hospital is too far off from my place, so I used to work out at by myself, hoping i was doing them correctly and connect with doctor every other month to review my progress. "
James Backstrom
78 years old
" I like to do exercises only that my body can handle. However, I often don't know if i am doing the exercises correctly and so sometimes over exercise and injure myself. So, someone in my family checks up on me every now and then "
# Insight 1
Afraid to try unfamiliar exercises since there is no app/ system out there specially catered to elderly.
# Insight 2
Prefers to exercise individually but lacks motivation at times.
Finds it expensive to afford personal trainers. however, prefers to have flexibility while doing so.
# Insight 3
Wishes to connect to physiotherapist right from the comfort of her home without a large learning curve.
# Insight 4
Often assumes exercises and is not sure if he is doing it correctly.
Defining the problem
Currently there are no apps, services or products specially catered to them.
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Don't like the commitment of going to the gym or having personal trainers as they find it to be really expensive.
Only 24.5% of seniors exercise daily.
Most of them don't know what kind of exercises are right for them
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About 75% of the elderly often assume diet/ exercises that could be good for them.
Often exercising incorrectly or over exercising causes muscle/ joint pain which affects their health and mobility.
Most of the apps or video classes held digitally do not tell users where and how to improve upon during the workout sessions or provide any feedback or any curated information specially catered to individuals needs.
Challenge
How might we help guide elderly based on individual needs, age and medical conditions to stay physically fit and healthy right from the comfort of their home ?
User Persona
User Journey
Brainstorming
Moscow Chart
Based on the market research and Interviews conducted, I classified user pain points and goals to key insights.
Feature Ideation
Data-Centric Organization: Features to Tasks
I created a design criteria and ideated on different features the system ought to have to reach this criteria. I then classified and narrowed the features to key tasks that were needed to be performed in app.
Solution
StepUp is a fitness system specially catered to the elderly that provides personalized suggestions, fitness programs based on their age, fitness level and medical conditions.
It also helps connect them to personal trainers, live/ recorded classes, games and physiotherapists from all around the world.
It also provides live accurate feedback with the help of body tracker to improve their movements and make sure that they are exercising correctly.
System StakeHolders
Elderly Users
Personal Trainers
Physiotherapists
Ecosystem Of Products
Strategy
StepUp App
Helps elderly easily connect to large network of physiotherapist and get access to personal trainers from all around the world right from the comfort of their home at cheaper cost.
They have access to fun fitness games, videos and able to curate their fitness schedule based their needs, interests and goals flexibly.
JOSH (Personal Digital Fitness Coach)
Emotional Connection and Response
Josh behaves like a interactive companion personal fitness trainer that guides the elderly through their fitness routine by using speech, sounds, gestures and subtle movement to convey emotion
The design utilizes movement and body tracking AI that helps elderly track their health, exercise , understand body movements. The system understands the user, grows with them and adapts to they lifestyle and needs.
User Scenario
Low Fidelity Wireframes
I started making paper prototypes to conduct usability tests. Paper prototypes were used to validate features that I had ideated. These were the key features that were developed as I believed would be useful for them.
Since elderly prefer using larger screen to view things easily so here decided to work on a interface for a ipad
Onboarding Process
Micro Interactions Feedback
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3/ 5 people had trouble finding the skip option if they didn't want to go through the onboarding aspect
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They found taking the fitness test confusing on the iPad and preferred it to do on TV.
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They found the on boarding process lengthy and preferred it be fast and quick.
Finding a Trainer and scheduling an appointment
Following the video set on the schedule and meeting with Trainer
Following the video and Meeting with Trainer
Viewing your activity progress and browsing through expert suggestions on health
User gets a notification to collaborate and plays game with a friend via the app
User can earn points by achieving target goals and trading it for coupons or donate to charity to keep them motivated
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They preferred if the system gave them suggestions as to what trainer would be good for them based on data inputed. during onboarding process.
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They found it hard to simply recognize icons and preferred to have a written text under the icon, in case if they can't recognize it.
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They found it confusing as to how to save a particular trainer profile and how they could access it again.
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They also faced trouble booking schedules and time slots for a particular trainer and found it hard to do so.
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They preferred meeting the trainer over a video call and exercise with them on tv as they can clearly see them and follow instructions.
They prefer to have a chat feature to send a message to the trainer incase if they cant make it or if trainer have some issues.
They don't prefer to meet the trainer everyday. They would like to know which days they are meeting with the trainer and get notifications.
They liked the aspect of having to access articles and blogs regarding their health but would also be interested in finding heathly routine or healthy food options.
Elderly found it really convenient to see what and how they were exercising along with the trainer but found the buttons all very confusing since there was so many on the screen.
They liked that they could view their progress and see how they are improving. But they preferred to have that option after the workout has just ended and see their progress per workout and where they could improve upon.
They liked the aspect of connecting and exercising in form of games with friends.
They found it a bit confusing as to how it works and found it complicated to redeem. They felt exercise games were a good motivation and this adds a layer of complication.
User Testing
Due to spread of COVID-19 it was really hard to conduct in-person user testing with elderly from different age groups, so I conducted user testing not only in person but also on zoom and collected feedback.
In person user testing - Age 55
In person user testing - Age 60
Zoom call user testing - Age 78
Key Learnings
Not everyone possessed an iPad and preferred to track their holistic progress even outside via mobile.
They preferred to 1st watch videos and try on their own if they liked the momentum and exercises the platform offered and then move to working with a trainer.
​​Having the aspect to get discount coupons for shopping they found it contradicting and felt it was taking them away from the experience.
They would often feel confused as to what exercises to pick based on their needs and had a hard time selecting and trying as they would not know how it would affect them.
High Fidelity Wireframes & User Tests
I focused in on asking the key questions regarding the experience by creating a clickable prototype with Principle. I got 6 participants to walkthrough the same experience and observed how they interacted and asked questions.
Since based on previous feedback i create an experience more suite to mobile interface for easy handling and usability anywhere.
Users got confused if they were clickable and preferred to have some visual aspect to it.
Users prefered to see the overview of user activity together and didn't prefer to scroll through.
Users were not sure what the TV icon did and they preferred to preview the video before adding it to schedule
Users found it confusing as to understand the difference between AI Schedule and my schule and where to add their classes to.
It was hard for them to spot the icon and get to the schedule page.
Users confused the message with reminders as it has the same outlook.
Hard for the users to click and select the dates as they are very small.
Key Features
Using the App
Personalized to every Individual users need
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Our elderly users can get personalized suggestion for exercises based on their age, fitness level and medical conditions depending on the information they inputted during the quick onboarding process.
Connect with Trainers and Physiotherapists from home
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Elderly can now easy discover, analyze and connect with trainers and physiotherapists from all round the world at a much reasonable rate and get the flexibility of working out with them right from the comfort of their home.
AI Trainer Generated Scheduling
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It helps give suggestions to the elderly as to what kind of exercises to do based on their personalized goals and when during the day to help them pace out and do the right exercises at right time.
Body tracking & AI Coaching
Get feedback and suggestions from trainers, physiotherapists, videos by "Josh", who understands their body movement and habits. It suggests as to how to improve upon, so that they can get assurance that they are doing the exercises correctly.
Using the TV
Get immediate performance feedback for improvement
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Elderly can now easily see how they are performing and what areas of body they need to improve upon which exercising in the future.
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Physical Wellbeing - Fall Prevention
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With this feature "Josh" their fitness coach tracks and connects to 911 or their near and dear ones incase if the elderly user has fallen down while exercising or is severely injured or in danger.
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Behavioral Attributes
Confused
Body Scanning
Encouraging
Playful
Warm
Intuitive
Respectful
Concerned
Sleep
Joyful
Playful
Josh Features
Flexible movement for body tracking during fitness activities
Tactile buttons for power and volume controls
Camera and Microphone
Speakers
UI Style Guide
Design System
Master Grid
Application
Typography
Typeface
Type Scale
Color
Main Colors
Color Application
Icons
Non Selected
Selected
Adaptive UI Elements
Header Options
Buttons
