Southtown Gym

No Matter Your Level of Fitness

Website: SouthTown Gym | Role: Lead Designer | Tools: Sketch, Invision, Adobe Creative Suite

the app

Southtown Gym is an app for gym enthusiasts around Ohio. This app initially launched in 2018 based off the physical location in Zanesville, Ohio and has since expanded to cover surrounding areas in the state. The mission of Southtown Gym is to help gym enthusiasts keep up with their training schedule as well as all the logistics of maintaining their profile and membership status. 

THE PROBLEM

When I started working with Southtown Gym, it was clear that there were some user experience pain points within the app. The app was not designed with an eye towards extensibility. Southtown Gym was eager to include an addition of new features. While keeping in mind UX best practices, common interaction patterns, and knowledge of the user base, I set out to design some recommendations for the app. 

THE TEAM

Due to the small size of our team, much of the research, UX design work, user testing, and UI design was accomplished individually. However, I did solicit and receive extensive feedback from the rest of the team which was from the Lead Android Developer, Lead iOS Developer, and Creative Director.

BEGINNING STAGE

The first phase of this project was to learn as much as I could about our user base and domain, while adding to the knowledge I already had. I also took this time to thoroughly explore the app as it was.

EXPLORATION

In the next phase of this work, I synthesized all that I had learned about our users and the app and explored potential UX improvements as well as possible design solutions to resolve user pain points.

AREAS OF OPPORTUNITY 

Through my knowledge of our gym users from our survey feedback, as well as the user experience audits, I was able to define some areas of opportunity as well as some pain points for our users. 

Discovery

For most of its existence, Southtown Gym had not actively marketed its app. Before, Southtown Gym was relying on word of mouth in the community. In order to tackle that problem, I proposed that Southtown Gym revamp its website, search engine optimization and social media marketing. 

User Profile

The Southtown Gym user profile is currently very basic. This presents an area of opportunity to expand social features and offerings within the app. Gym Classes and class passes are social features it has to offer, along with other social interaction touch points within the app. I proposed a solution of expanding user profile features to engage the user with the app. 

Membership Retention 

The membership system was a major pain point for both the user and for Southtown Gym. Oftentimes, users had difficulty signing up to create their member profile. Users also struggled with entering their payment information to secure their membership. Improving this user experience will result in increased memberships, sales, and retention for the company as well as a more streamlined experience for its customers. I proposed a solution of redesigning the registration system for creating profiles and registration for classes. 

WIREFRAMES

With the knowledge I gained and artifacts created from previous phases of this project, I created a series of wireframes that were geared towards enhancing the overall user experience and solving existing problems and pain points. 

USER TESTING

The first step to testing my wireframes for Southtown Gym was to add them to an interactive Invision prototype so that participants could more readily interact with the wireframes offsite. In this manner, I was able to take a step back into a more observant role during the testing sessions. 

Before the sessions began, I developed a testing protocol and tasks so that I could compare and contrast sessions. I made sure I recruited a variety of participants from across the spectrum. I’m always eager to recruit and gain knowledge from a range of users. I used this time to interview participants about their gym needs and preferences. 

After testing, it became clear that there were a few aspects of my design that needed to be revised and updated. I incorporated these changes to the wireframes before embarking on further user testing.

PROTOTYPE

Once the high-fidelity mockups were completed, I imported them into InVision, using the tool to create a clickable prototype. The purpose of this was multi-faceted. I had the benefit of using InVision’s tools to experience the prototype as if it were a live app. With this method, I was able to pinpoint and mitigate awkward moments in the designed experience. Lastly, I was also able to quickly and easily share assets and specs with both our Android developer and our iOS developer.