CASE STUDY:
01
My team was tasked with designing a digital interface which would pair with a stationary bike and elliptical machine, the Stride, that would ensure lasting engagement with the machine.
02
Stride is an exercise machine that functions as both an elliptical machine and a stationary bike, built by Chicago-based entrepreneur, Joseph Prosntiz.
03
Research Report
Persona
Concept Exploration
Prototype
04
Final iPhone-native mid-fidelity prototype, which was developed into a high-fidelity prototype for beta testing by another team.
Stride's founder, Joseph Prosnitz, was in search of a low-impact workout after being diagnosed with juvenile arthritis. Unable to find an at-home exercise machine that offered the low-impact workout he sought, he took the matter into his own hands. As an answer to his predicament, Joseph developed the Stride, an exercise machine that functions as both an elliptical machine and a stationary bike.
With my cross-functional team, I conducted user research, identified key insights that acted as a framework for ideation, and designed a mid-fidelity prototype which has since been developed into a high-fidelity prototype for beta testing.
Since no digital interface existed for the Stride, we started with an in-depth look at other at-home fitness apps. We divvied up the work and went out into the field, visiting a Peloton sales location, a fitness equipment convention, and local gyms to conduct our research.
A trend emerged: many fitness apps that pair with a piece of exercise equipment tended to skew toward high-intensity workouts, while fitness apps that offered more casual or low-impact workout content were rarely paired with any equipment.
Graphing out these different competitors, it was clear that Stride’s competitive edge was its ability to offer a casual, low-impact workout on a piece of home exercise equipment. We next needed to discover Stride's target audience.
Through several rounds of user interviews we identified Stride’s target audience as suburban moms between the ages of 40–65.
Our interviews with this demographic of suburban moms led to the following insights:
USER INTERVIEW INSIGHT 1
“Technically, if I stop, no one is there to watch and tell me to keep going” —User 5
In several of our user interviews we heard that while working out at home is convenient and less stressful, it's also very easy to get distracted by other tasks.
USER INTERVIEW INSIGHT 2
“[Workout classes] are a really good stress reliever for me because I don't have to think about anything else” —User 8
Many users we interviewed had previously gone to workout classes. The fact that they didn't have to think much about planning their workouts beforehand made it easier to stay engaged.
USER INTERVIEW INSIGHT 3
“I feel like I need someone there to tell me if I'm doing it right or wrong” —User 10
Many of the users we interviewed shared with us that creating a routine could be overwhelming. They wanted to do their exercises correctly and know that their routine was helping their health more than hurting. They often felt that they didn’t have anyone they could turn to for guidance.
USER INTERVIEW INSIGHT 4
“A phone would be preferable, because you always have your phone with you” —User 2
While tablets were popular among our users, they tended to be at-home only devices. Our suburban moms liked to have easy access to their workout progress throughout the day, so cell phones were preferred over tablets.
These insights gave us a clear vision of the various pain points our users faced in creating healthy exercise habits. We took what we gained from our research and interviews and synthesized this information to define the problem to solve.
Since Stride was not yet released to market, we found it valuable to create a persona so that our team and other stakeholders would be aligned on our target user. We created Joanne.
Age: 52
Relationship status: Married with children
Occupation: Stay-at-home mom
Goal: To exercise more regularly
Motivations:
Frustrations:
We posed our problem through Joanne:
We knew we wanted the Stride companion app to help motivate Joanne to create and maintain healthy exercise habits with the machine. I conducted several rounds of ideation with my team to explore possible solutions. Many affinity maps and whiteboard diagrams later, we landed on six main concepts that we took into testing.
In testing we found that Concepts 1 and 2 tested most positively. Testing participants wanted access and a way tot track their workout progress through graphs and reports. They were also drawn to being able to beat the time or calories of a previous workout they had completed. Interestingly, participants were far more interested in the idea of competing against themselves than competing against others.
With this knowledge in hand, we iterated. I drew out screens for several different task flows that incorporated pieces from our top ranking concepts. As a team, we went through our iterated sketches and aligned on our next steps towards an MVP.
The Stride companion app is an iPhone-native app that encourages and celebrates improvement in the workout journey, while lessening the burden of planning and documenting the process.
This video provides a brief walkthrough with voice-over of some of our prototype's functionality:
We delivered our final solution to our client with annotated wireframes of our screens and a detailed research summary. Following our engagement with Joseph, our design was taken into further development by another team to address the visual branding across the app.
As a product in early conceptual development, the Stride companion app was a UX designer's dream opportunity. I was able to have a hand in all phases of the design process, from initial research through to prototyping. I will be excited to see the implementation of our work as Joseph looks ahead to product launch.
If you'd like to see or hear more about my design work with Stride,
please email me at kara.l.saje@gmail.com
