Survey

I collected 25 survey responses from my network. One significant insight from the survey was that all but three used multiple tools to complete the task of tracking their progress, and there were 22 unique combination combinations.

Competitive analyses

I was curious about all the tools mentioned in the survey, so I made a slide deck to list the pros and cons.

user interviews

Using the survey results, I recruited six interview participants. All participants focus on strength goals primarily over aesthetics and health, and five are competitive powerlifters. These interviews revealed frustrations with tracking progress, and several common themes stood out.

• People wanted to track their progress over a long period. (and be reminded of how far they have come)
• Many powerlifters film their lifts to check their form, provide proof that they performed the lift, share their achievements with others on social channels, and sometimes look back at how their lifting has changed over time.
• Participants wish it was easier to reference the numbers, dates, and video footage in one place.
• Getting strong takes time; sometimes, the results aren’t easy to see day-to-day. Several interview participants said they sometimes are hard on themselves after a rough workout. However, reflecting on form improvements, consistency, and factors such as being busy at work helped them stay positive and motivated.

Personas

I knew my primary user was a competitive Powerlifter, but I found so much variation in actions and attitudes during my interviews that I made three personas. Later, I mostly referenced my primary persona, Chelsea, but also often questioned, “How would Miguel or Amber interpret this feature?”

Storyboards

I created a before and after storyboard to help sort out what features I needed in the app. I focused on the scenario of a lifter who had just finished a set of squats. She immediately questions if she has ever lifted that weight for that many reps. Knowing it is a PR gives her confidence and drive to keep lifting.

site map

I wanted everything to be accessible from a dashboard or homepage. From here, I wanted everything to be surface-level and easy to access since users would often access the app while at the gym getting a workout in.

Usability testing

I performed five usability tests over zoom. Ideally, I would have only recruited Powerlifters. But, I had tight scheduling, so I settled for two powerlifters and three others participating in general strength training. During the test with the powerlifters, I paid particular attention to what they mentioned when navigating the powerlifting-specific elements. For the other three, I focused on their reactions to usability in general.

During the review PR and sharing tasks, several participants reacted with delight.

Branding

I was creating this app from scratch, and I needed branding. However, I didn’t want to allocate tons of time to this portion of the project. So I did a quick visual audit of the fitness and strength tracking space, brainstormed names, and quickly sketched out options for a logo. I kept the name straight to the point (LiftTracker) and quickly sketched and refined a wordmark using the same typeface as the rest of the app, Roboto. I knew I wanted to work in dark mode and use a triadic color scheme as a color code throughout the app - using each color to represent a different lift.