Introduction
Our goal for this project is to encourage a specific user group to use fitness trackers. This project is heavily focused on picking and defining a specific user group and identifying their mental model. Building empathy and connecting with the user to create a more natural, effective design was central to the core of our goal. We needed to be able to clearly explain the approach we took, including the obstacles we faced, the tactics we used, and the connections we made between our user group, our design space, and our actual design. We were instructed to modify user behavior and empower them to be healthier rather than making huge changes to existing software and to only focus on tracking steps. Creating a well done mental model and scenarios, doing background research on our user group, and figuring out ways to change the mental model were some of our first or most essential steps.
Initial design space
The initial design space involves targeting a specific user demographic, namely individuals aged 40-60 who own fitness trackers, particularly focusing on the 68% within this age range. The team considered modifying the fixed number of steps on fitness trackers based on user engagement duration. Initial ideas revolved around incorporating healthy incentives, location rewards, and small rewards to motivate users. Another concept involved correlating calorie intake with the required exercise. Additionally, the team explored the idea of presenting users with motivating facts to encourage them to meet their fitness goals, with a shift to positive reinforcement upon goal achievement. Further suggestions included integrating location-based rewards through capturing pictures during walks, providing trail recommendations, and removing the visibility of other users' exercise data.
Preliminary Research
Purpose and Goal Research
In order to gain a more specific user group, our group conducted research in order to find out who used fitness trackers the most, and what people’s motivations were for cheating their steps. We also did some research on the fitness trackers themselves, trying to figure out why they weren’t completely reliable and how people would figure out how to trick it. We needed to discover the different mental models of differing user groups, comparing them to one another and trying to best decide how to fix their mental model instead of solely focusing on fixing the technology.
Our research covered a lot of areas. We found that users were more likely to cheat if the fitness tracker was a required part of insurance to get a discount, and that trackers are getting harder and harder to fool. Trackers record information and filter it through the personal settings, then give the information to the user. We looked into the benefits of walking daily and dangers of not exercising regularly and found that walking increases longevity of life and decreases risk of heart disease. One more thing we covered was what motivated different groups of people, and the research suggested that people in our chosen age range tend to be motivated by nature, family, and self protection.
After some research, our group decided our user group would consist of middle-aged people that had older children, most likely in college or on their own, and that lived in the suburbs or rural areas. We tried to construct a current mental model of this specific group, and we came up with this:
- Motivated more by sociality
- Most are motivated by passion
- [Most] are aware of insurance health benefits (because work provides it)
- Research says older people are motivated by nature
- “older generations are more inspired by their partners, family and nature” (independent.co.uk)
- Not as motivated by body image
- “It may come as no surprise that body image becomes less important as we age, however the study found that once we reach our 60s, personal appearance drives us more once again.” (independent.co.uk)
This was an “Activity Theory” that was supposed to lay out the different parts of this issue of faking steps. This included tools, subject, object, rules, community, effort and outcome. It is meant to be a breakdown, and the two slashes between rules and subject and subject and tools are meant to represent where the divide, or issue, is most prevalent.
During our interviews, we interviewed people that were middle-aged, had children around our age, and lived in the suburbs. We interviewed four people in total. Only one interview included a user that lived in an urban area, and we were eventually able to compare those results and narrow our user group to just rural middle-aged parents. The interviews allowed us to learn more about our user groups’ motivations and ideals concerning people who did fake their steps before. It also gave us more insight into how the group viewed health and their overall well being. These perspectives gave us more of an understanding of our user group, and allowed us to consider ideas and things we hadn’t previously.
Some of the questions we chose to ask our users were the following:
Why did you start using fitbits or apple watches?
Have you ever faked your steps?
If yes / no, why?
If no, have you ever considered it?
Did you know that using fitbits to track your steps and then having more steps and being “healthy” could decrease your health insurance prices?
Why do you think people would fake their steps?
Have you felt pressure to appear more healthy than you are?
Do you think the fitbits or apple watches might’ve encouraged this mentality?
Are you a competitive person? Does this affect how you use fitbits or apple watches?
Would you consider yourself one motivated by fear, money, or passion? Or are you motivated by something else?
Affinity Diagramming
When the interviews were concluded, we had to compare our data. Our group did so using an Affinity Diagram, trying to organize each of the most important points from our interviews into categories in order to get our most important ideas across. We created groups such as “Faking Steps,” “Motivation,” “Viewing Others’ Steps,” “Goals, “Competition,” “App Insights about Health,” and “Location Aspect.” Each color is a different user that was interviewed, and this gave us more insight into what was most and least important regarding our research and our previous knowledge of why people faked their steps.
Mental Models
After evaluating, comparing and contrasting the data from our interviews, our group decided to create a layout for the current mental model of our user group. We took the most important aspects in order to find out the user groups motivations, their fears, their thoughts and ideals, so that we could make sure that we were designing with the right solutions in mind. One big idea was that many of the users were motivated by sociality and passion. They liked hanging out with others and stated that they wanted to be healthy, even though it was a bit difficult for them. Most of them also claimed that they were aware of the insurance health benefits since lots of jobs provide it, and admitted that this is most likely a reason why many people fake their steps. Research also supported the idea that middle-aged parents weren’t as motivated by body image as they were by nature and the outdoors.
When we created the current mental model of our user group, we also decided to list out characteristics that we wanted the refined mental model of our user group to be with this new product. A main point we brought up was that we wanted the users to be less motivated by money and external rewards, and more motivated by a need and want to be healthy and happy. We also knew that since they were very motivated socially, we wanted them to be able to encourage others to be healthy so that those that were encouraged would also encourage others as well, and it would be a positivity chain. A big aspect of our design was also nature, and so we wanted them to continue to be interesting and motivated by nature, and we overall wanted them to be more motivated and excited to reach their step goals.
Ideation & Design
After doing research and getting data from our user group, it was time for our team to combine the most important points into a possible solution. In this stage, our group decided that we wanted to add features that emphasized nature, sociality, and fun rewards, based upon our user group’s mental model. We came up with this list of ideas for these additions to the Apple exercise band:
Use recommended trails and have people take pictures on the trails
Only let them upload the images when they are finished with their walk (for safety reasons
Give incentives for walking to certain locations
See other people’s walking and the images they take
We decided we wanted to build off of an already existing fitness tracker because we felt that while there instances of faking steps, many of the features could still be important and useful. For example, we found the “friends” aspect of the technology to be good as many of our users stated during their interviews that they would want to be social and enjoyed the competitive nature of being able to see other friends’ status on the app. We also wanted to keep the layout of the home page where the statistics like the number of steps, calories burned, and heart rate were shown because we felt those weren’t an issue that was causing our user group to cheat, and felt it would still be useful.
This sketch shows a basic idea of different pages we had started talking about. The first page in the top left is similar to that of the normal app, where the number of steps, calories burned, and distance is displayed. There are also pages for taking pictures, seeing other friends, and a rewards page.
When compiling our ideas from sketches, interviews, usability testing, and observations, we came up with our Final Storyboard. The Final Storyboard is meant to showcase our product, FoodChat, in action, and how it would be useful in the store interaction for a user.
Final Storyboard
This sketch displays more ideas about the trails, and how the app could possibly represent the trails to the user. It compared the idea to Pokemon Go, and also offers a suggestion of adding one’s own trails if they so chose to.
This sketch displays an initial idea of the Route pages, where a list of different routes would be displayed for the user to choose from. The description would include the route’s name, the number of steps, how far away that route is from the user, and its rating. It would also include the option to walk now or later, which will direct the user to a page that displays a person start time and time elapsed. There is also a camera icon for the user to take a picture when they so choose.
User Interface
After our team had created separate sketches of our ideas and what we believed the product was going to look like, we worked together to create a list, layout or basic idea of the separate pages we wanted to include and what each of their functions would be. We ended up creating about five pages titled “Home,” “Routes,” “Friends,” “Pictures,” and “Rewards.” We included specifics about what we would include on each page, and tried to create something that was similar to the UI of the fitness tracker already created but unique enough that it wouldn’t be overshadowed by other apps or trackers attempting similar ideas.
Evaluation
Empathy Map
When we had our user group defined, we needed to dig deeper and create something known as an Empathy Map. This empathy map is meant to highlight the different ideas and feelings of our user group in order for us to narrow down our ideas more, and to really understand what they would think of our design and what they need in order for them to stop faking steps. In order to do this, the ideas were divided into multiple sections and descriptions, including “who” they were, “what they need to do,” what they “hear,” “see,” and “say, and what they do in general. The middle of the Empathy Map is considered where everything is tied together, as we had to list the main “pains” and “gains” for the user group and how they would benefit from this solution. This helped us put ourselves more in our users’ shoes in order to truly understand their emotions and thoughts when thinking about fitness trackers and cheating, and is meant to give us more perspectives that would enhance the effectiveness of our solution.
Above is the Empathy Map. This allowed us to find a clear definition for our user group.
Defined User Group Now: Middle-aged parents of older children who find themselves with little motivation, time, or fear in general of exercising and trying to make themselves healthier.
Usability Testing
In this part of the process, a user that fit the parameters of our user group was asked about the app and how they felt it would benefit or not benefit them. This part of the process was to give us an idea of our design and figure out what needed to be changed or considered when taking into account the opinion of the group the app was intended for.
Usability testing on the app revealed some things we hadn't considered. The user liked how informative the app was. They liked the flexibility of being able to adjust steps, pick missions, and see all the available information on trails. Different people and groups have different needs, so they thought it was important that there was a lot of information available to users.
However, there were also a few things that were confusing. The meaning of the different colored bars on the steps and rewards page was unclear, especially whether or not it was related to awards. The potential user also suggested that there be a way to make comments or update the status of a trail. Having real time comments would allow people to know if the difficulty had changed, such as if trails were still covered in snow during wintertime, if a tree had fallen across the path, or even if bears had been spotted in the area. This was something we hadn’t considered, but would also be an important part of the app since a path’s difficulty might change over the year.
Solution
Final Prototype
Our final prototype added improvements to the current Apple Fitness app. Drawing from our research and interview data supporting nature as a motivator, we added a whole section of recommended outdoor walking trails. They display how close they are to the user, a picture and title, as well as a rating from other people who have walked the trail. When walking, users are able to see their start and elapsed time as well as heart rate. They can also see their progress visualized with a little person icon and progress bar. This feature leads into another main function, the nature feed where users can post beautiful nature pictures they capture on their walk. Other users can scroll through and see the pictures and how many steps the poster walked, and they can “like” the post.
These first three pages are representative of what the apple fitness tracker app already shows. These are the parts we wanted to keep the same, as there wasn’t any real issue with them and we felt they would still benefit our user group the best. The first page shows the usual circle that displays statistics and awards, with the second pages adding missions to gain more awards if the user so chooses. We decided we wanted the rewards to be more self motivating things, where there is no real monetary or physical incentive, getting rid of that motivation to cheat to reap the benefits. The last page all the way to the right is a change we decided to make, where the user is able to adjust their steps per day. We did, however, decide to add a minimum for the user so that it wouldn’t be too small, deciding around 1,500 steps per day was acceptable. After usability testing, we also made the UI more clear for the third image representing the calories.
These first three pages are representative of what the apple fitness tracker app already shows. These are the parts we wanted to keep the same, as there wasn’t any real issue with them and we felt they would still benefit our user group the best. The first page shows the usual circle that displays statistics and awards, with the second pages adding missions to gain more awards if the user so chooses. We decided we wanted the rewards to be more self motivating things, where there is no real monetary or physical incentive, getting rid of that motivation to cheat to reap the benefits. The last page all the way to the right is a change we decided to make, where the user is able to adjust their steps per day. We did, however, decide to add a minimum for the user so that it wouldn’t be too small, deciding around 1,500 steps per day was acceptable. After usability testing, we also made the UI more clear for the third image representing the calories.
A final contribution we made to the app was a page titled “Nature Feed,” which is a social media aspect that allows users to view other’s walking paths and see how many steps they had taken in order to do it. It is meant to motivate the users as well as emphasize the competitive aspect. There are likes that users can add to the images, which is what the little shoe in the bottom right-hand corner of the image post represents.
Design Rationale
Our team decided to lean into the nature aspect of our research to use it as a central motivator. Our findings pointed out that nature is a motivator for older age groups, and we viewed it alongside our users as a relaxing experience that could take away some of the health stress and fear that they feel. By dissecting the established foundation that Apple Fitness has, we realized our additional features would fit in well and were able to make changes by adding just a few more screens to the app.
Conclusion
When we started this project, our goal was to prevent our user group from cheating and to motivate them to walk more. Our research revealed that cheating is not very common, so we switched to motivating through walks and creating an enjoyable experience for those who wanted to start. As we began to create the app, collect data from interviews, figure out our mental model, and create our strategy, we began to narrow down our idea. Sketching and basic prototypes helped us feel out our final product, and eventually we came to draw from the Apple Fitness app and some social media apps like Instagram to create the finished model. Creating a community and drawing on the motivation and enjoyment of nature became central to our project, and helped us create our app.
Next Steps
Our next steps would be to format the app to be usable on wearable devices, such as an actual fitness band since the UI would have to be reformatted and made smaller but still easy to read. We also would conduct a lot more usability testing and make more iterations to eventually test whether our design alters user behavior successfully over a long amount of time. Along with these ideas we would also most likely try to see how successful this idea would be in other seasons besides Summer, and how we could help it keep up with differing conditions.
Team Contributions
Grace Combs
Interviewed a user
Created an initial sketch
Designed empathy map
Presented our user group to the class
Wrote the solution and next steps part of documentation and completed table of contents
Alexia Gil
Interviewed two users
Created an initial sketch
Found secondary research
Created and worked on presentation
Created Table of Contents
Wrote preliminary research and ideation & design in documentation
Created Works Cited
Helped create Affinity Diagram
Cossette Chamberlin
Wrote preliminary research
Interviewed user for user evaluation
Coordinated and carried out usability test
Wrote conclusion
Neo Agrawal
Interviewed a user
Created an initial sketch
Did activity theory
Did affinity diagram
Made and presented figma prototype
Made design rationale
Hall of Projects
2023
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2023
PROJECT3: “fake out”
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