Fall 2024 - Winter 2025
Helping Young Adults start and maintain their fitness journey.
Summary
Active Fitness App
Active Fitness App users can now anticipate their workout journey with AI-powered guidance and social accountability, helping them plan sessions, stay consistent, and feel supported during challenging moments. The redesigned fitness experience targets young adults struggling with gym anxiety and motivation, aiming to reduce the 50% six-month dropout rate to under 30% while increasing average workout streaks to 14+ days.
⭐️ I decided that my thesis needed to be shipped, check out the Active Fitness App Live ! click here. (Use name@email.com and password 0000 to sign in.)
Team
Individual
Role
UX Researcher and Visual Designer
Timeline
8 months (September 2024 - April 2025)
Project Overview
The Problem
We Know Exercise Matters. So Why Don't We Do It?
Physical fitness has never been more accessible, or more talked about. The global gym membership market is projected to hit $70.1 billion by 2032, fueled by growing awareness that exercise is essential for both physical and mental health.
Yet despite this explosion in fitness culture, 50% of new gym members quit within six months.
" How might we support young adults when starting their fitness journeys? "
Research shows this isn't about laziness. Young adults face multiple barriers: extrinsic motivation that doesn't sustain long-term habits, real gym anxiety when surrounded by experienced lifters, financial barriers to personal training, and time management struggles that make consistency feel impossible.
Research Insights
I interviewed 11 screened participants and observed 4 of them through actual gym visits to understand what really happens when someone tries to start working out. I split participants into two groups:
During the interviews I found that participants that were screened there was a variety of people with different levels but similar struggles which I wanted to explore further, furthermore, I had split participants into two groups. :
Group A: Struggling to start
Group B: Struggling to maintain consistency
What I discovered wasn't just about "lack of motivation" or just lack of "time managment"
Let's Meet Lara & Tobias!
Lara and Tobias could relate in one thing:
Solution development
(The solutions stemmed from co-creation, usability testing, talking to mentors, and iterating wireframes and sketches.)
The solution involves interconnected features that work together to transform the fitness experience. An AI Coach called Fred and Match with a Friend system.
My goal: Ensure young adults feel confident and prepared for their fitness journey. By offering a system to support at the right time, so we can reduce the chances of people abandoning their routines because they feel overwhelmed, lost, or alone.
The Task/User flows that helped define the solution.
Creative Process: From Sketches to Final Version
This the Active Fitness App, looking to rethink how we see fitness activities. This is how it went from sketching to initial wireframes to the final version, a revamp new version of the app.
Your AI-Fitness coach: Fred
Fred is an AI-powered fitness companion that guides you through the hardest parts of getting started.
Solving the problem: Difficulty staying consistent, Not knowing your goals, lack of motivation, not knowing where to start.
Keeping it up with a Friend.
Working out becomes more social, less intimidating, and way easier to stick with. having streaks doing challenges with them and being able to even get milestones with them.
Solving problem: Difficulty staying consistent
Nudge your friend so you don't lose your shared streak!
Your friend might get caught up with life and might have forgot about their streak with you and the challenge you are doing with each other, so to help your friend remember, send them a nudge!
The Creative Strategy behind Active Fitness App
Important Highlights:
The Orange want to be able to showcase movement friendly feeling out of it
Pairing with a Purple color to showcase energy and connection.
Black and white to keep it complementary and modern at the same time.
Measuring and Testing Success
When implemented, the following metrics can measure if the solution is viable and solving the problem:
Behavior & Retention
6-month retention rate — Reduce dropout from 50% to under 30%
Average streak length — Target: 14+ days within first month
Workout frequency — Number of logged gym sessions per week
Disruption recovery — Time taken to restart after missing workouts
Feature Adoption
Fred AI usage — Frequency of workout plans, questions, and schedule optimization
Match success rate — Percentage of users with active workout buddies
Nudge effectiveness — Percentage who work out after receiving a nudge
Share engagement — How often users post and react to progress updates
Reflections
If I had more time, a Competitive analysis would have helped.
While I conducted some research on existing fitness programs and apps, more extensive competitive analysis would have helped me understand how competitors operate, their value propositions, and market positioning. This deeper perspective would have better informed a functional business model that works in the active fitness app industry. After the thesis and while revamping it, I did a competitive analysis that helped with the revamping of the project.
Is impossible to do every single thing in mind.
Research generated many ideas, but only a few made the final cut. Streamlining feasible concepts was difficult given timeline constraints and the complexity of building a community and resource-focused app like Active. In the end, this challenge taught me how to prioritize and choose which battles to fight.
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