Promoting Social Gym Activity at the University of Washington Main Campus Gym
Husky Fit
Husky Fit
Promoting Social Gym Activity at the University of Washington Main Campus Gym
Role
Role
Role
Duration
Context
Context
Context
Problem
Problem
Problem
Duration
Duration
Duration
Tools
Tools
Tools
UX Designer
10 weeks
10 weeks
Figma, Miro
I completed this project alongside three of my classmates during one my courses in my Human-Centered Design & Engineering curriculum. The Intramural Arts Building (IMA) is the main gym at the University of Washington campus in which students exercise and play group sports/activities.
Many students have never been to the IMA as they find it daunting to go alone and wish to find workout partners or other students to play group sports with.
How can we improve the campus gym experience for students to ensure students feel more included and comfortable at the gym?
Project Overview
Many students have never been to the IMA as they find it daunting to go alone and wish to find workout partners or other students to play group sports with.
How can we improve the campus gym experience for students to ensure students feel more included and comfortable at the gym?
I completed this project alongside three of my classmates during one my courses in my Human-Centered Design & Engineering curriculum. The Intramural Arts Building (IMA) is the main gym at the University of Washington campus in which students exercise and play group sports/activities.
I completed this project alongside three of my classmates during one my courses in my Human-Centered Design & Engineering curriculum. The Intramural Arts Building (IMA) is the main gym at the University of Washington campus in which students exercise and play group sports/activities.
Project Overview
Project Overview
Many students have never been to the IMA as they find it daunting to go alone and wish to find workout partners or other students to play group sports with.
How can we improve the campus gym experience for students to ensure students feel more included and comfortable at the gym?
Interviewing Students
01
02
Finding people for group activities can be difficult
It can be daunting to try new gym activities alone
03
For this project, I conducted 4 semi-structured interviews with IMA users of various gym experience levels to learn about their gym habits. I wanted to gain a better understanding of our target users' pain points and goals surrounding their IMA experience.
Conducting Research
Users spend a lot of time trying to schedule time to workout with friends
Applying Research Findings into Insights
After interviewing the students, I created these personas so I could better understand the different user groups of our target audience. These personas helped me contextualize the users’ journeys and integrate user desires, goals, and pain points into our solution.
Conducting Research
For this project, I conducted 4 semi-structured interviews with IMA users of various gym experience levels to learn about their gym habits. I wanted to gain a better understanding of our target users' pain points and goals surrounding their IMA experience.
Conducting Research
For this project, I conducted 4 semi-structured interviews with IMA users of various gym experience levels to learn about their gym habits. I wanted to gain a better understanding of our target users' pain points and goals surrounding their IMA experience.
Finding people for group activities can be difficult
It can be daunting to try new gym activities alone
Users spend a lot of time trying to schedule time to workout with friends
Applying Research Findings into Insights
After interviewing the students, I created these personas so I could better understand the different user groups of our target audience. These personas helped me contextualize the users’ journeys and integrate user desires, goals, and pain points into our solution.
Applying Research Findings into Insights
Creating a user journey map allowed me to define and target specific user pain points. This map provided us with a visual representation of where users were unhappy with their gym experience and where we could improve their experience.
Brainstorming Concepts
Brainstorming Concepts
After interviewing the students, I created these personas so I could better understand the different user groups of our target audience. These personas helped me contextualize the users’ journeys and integrate user desires, goals, and pain points into our solution.
Mapping Our Research Insights
Creating a user journey map allowed me to define and target specific user pain points. This map provided us with a visual representation of where users were unhappy with their gym experience and where we could improve their experience.
01
02
03
Connect people with similar interests and hobbies
Foster a comfortable level of social interaction for the user
04
Match users looking for gym partners
Allow users to message friends/gym groups
After locating specific pain points in the user's journey, I targeted these experiences by coming up with a list of design requirements that would help users accomplish their goals. These design requirements also helped my group members and I reach a consensus on what features our final solution would have.
Brainstorming Concepts
Creating Design Requirements for Our Solution
Foster a comfortable level of social interaction for the user
Foster a comfortable level of social interaction for the user
Mapping Our Research Insights
Creating a user journey map allowed me to target user struggles and create a more fluid and intuitive user flow. I created the user journey map based off of Sarah — one of the previous personas we created — as she was an ideal user of our product and her user journey provided us with more gymgoers’ insights on those using our product. This map provided us with a graphic representation of where users were unhappy with their gym experience and where we could improve their experience.
After locating specific pain points in the user's journey, I targeted these experiences by coming up with a list of design requirements that would help users accomplish their goals. These design requirements also helped my group members and I reach a consensus on what features our final solution would have.
Creating Design Requirements for Our Solution
After locating specific pain points in the user's journey, I targeted these experiences by coming up with a list of design requirements that would help users accomplish their goals. These design requirements also helped my group members and I reach a consensus on what features our final solution would have.
Connect people with similar interests and hobbies
Foster a comfortable level of social interaction for the user
Match users looking for gym partners
Allow users to message friends/gym groups
Connect people with similar interests and hobbies
Foster a comfortable level of social interaction for the user
Allow users to message friends/gym groups
Match users looking for gym partners
Applying Design and Research to Stories
I created two storyboards to translate our user research, personas, and user journeys into an understandable and more easily processed medium. With these storyboards, we had a good understanding of what scenarios our users might be in and what goals they had in mind when using our product.
I created two storyboards to translate our user research, personas, and user journeys into an understandable and more easily processed medium. With these storyboards, we had a good understanding of what scenarios our users might be in and what goals they had in mind when using our product.
Ideating and Designing Concepts
Ideating and Designing Concepts
Ideating and Designing Concepts
I created two storyboards to translate our user research, personas, and user journeys into an understandable and more easily processed medium. With these storyboards, we had a good understanding of what scenarios our users might be in and what goals they had in mind when using our product.
Applying Design and Research to Stories
Mapping Out Our Solution
I created an information architecture map to help flesh out the design and features of our solution without building our final solution. It helped me understand the user flows and navigation throughout our app. It also helped me easily visualize what features or wireframes were necessary.
I created an information architecture map to help flesh out the design and features of our solution without building our final solution. It helped me understand the user flows and navigation throughout our app. It also helped me easily visualize what features or wireframes were necessary.
I created an information architecture map to help flesh out the design and features of our solution without building our final solution. It helped me understand the user flows and navigation throughout our app. It also helped me easily visualize what features or wireframes were necessary.
Drawing Out Low-Fidelity Prototypes
Drawing Out Low-Fidelity Prototypes
I created low fidelity “paper prototypes” next to focus on building out general mobile features without getting bogged down by the details. I focused more on the functionality/framework of our design through these low-fidelity prototypes rather than design details. This allowed us to refine our ideas and features so we could build a strong basis for our solution while leaving room for redesigns based on user testing.
I created low fidelity “paper prototypes” next to focus on building out general mobile features without getting bogged down by the details. I focused more on the functionality/framework of our design through these low-fidelity prototypes rather than design details. This allowed us to refine our ideas and features so we could build a strong basis for our solution while leaving room for redesigns based on user testing.
Final Reflection
Throughout this project, I learned about the overall design process and about user-centered design. I enjoyed quickly going through the different parts of the design process — research, ideating, prototyping etc. One of the biggest challenges our team faced was the lack of time as we only had 10 weeks to complete this project. If I had more time, I would want to conduct more initial user research and more usability testing. The initial four interviews we did didn’t accurately reflect the majority of IMA users so I would have like to conduct more interviews with diverse potential users. I would have also liked to spend more time conducting user testing to gain more insights on our solution so we could better improve it.
One important takeaway I learned from this project was the importance of communicating early on. Since we only had 10 weeks to complete this project, it was important that my team worked quickly and efficiently. With COVID-19 flaring up during this project, we often felt overwhelmed with our work or had unexpected issues arise. Communicating often and early on was super helpful because we were able to support each other throughout the process and work effectively and efficiently.
Throughout this project, I learned about the overall design process and about user-centered design. I enjoyed quickly going through the different parts of the design process — research, ideating, prototyping etc. One of the biggest challenges our team faced was the lack of time as we only had 10 weeks to complete this project. If I had more time, I would want to conduct more initial user research and more usability testing. The initial four interviews we did didn’t accurately reflect the majority of IMA users so I would have like to conduct more interviews with diverse potential users. I would have also liked to spend more time conducting user testing to gain more insights on our solution so we could better improve it.
One important takeaway I learned from this project was the importance of communicating early on. Since we only had 10 weeks to complete this project, it was important that my team worked quickly and efficiently. With COVID-19 flaring up during this project, we often felt overwhelmed with our work or had unexpected issues arise. Communicating often and early on was super helpful because we were able to support each other throughout the process and work effectively and efficiently.
Throughout this project, I learned about the overall design process and about user-centered design. I enjoyed quickly going through the different parts of the design process — research, ideating, prototyping etc. One of the biggest challenges our team faced was the lack of time as we only had 10 weeks to complete this project. If I had more time, I would want to conduct more initial user research and more usability testing. The initial four interviews we did didn’t accurately reflect the majority of IMA users so I would have like to conduct more interviews with diverse potential users. I would have also liked to spend more time conducting user testing to gain more insights on our solution so we could better improve it.
One important takeaway I learned from this project was the importance of communicating early on. Since we only had 10 weeks to complete this project, it was important that my team worked quickly and efficiently. With COVID-19 flaring up during this project, we often felt overwhelmed with our work or had unexpected issues arise. Communicating often and early on was super helpful because we were able to support each other throughout the process and work effectively and efficiently.
Throughout this project, I learned about the overall design process and about user-centered design. I enjoyed quickly going through the different parts of the design process — research, ideating, prototyping etc. One of the biggest challenges our team faced was the lack of time as we only had 10 weeks to complete this project. If I had more time, I would want to conduct more initial user research and more usability testing. The initial four interviews we did didn’t accurately reflect the majority of IMA users so I would have like to conduct more interviews with diverse potential users. I would have also liked to spend more time conducting user testing to gain more insights on our solution so we could better improve it.
One important takeaway I learned from this project was the importance of communicating early on. Since we only had 10 weeks to complete this project, it was important that my team worked quickly and efficiently. With COVID-19 flaring up during this project, we often felt overwhelmed with our work or had unexpected issues arise. Communicating often and early on was super helpful because we were able to support each other throughout the process and work effectively and efficiently.