Avanch is a fitness app where you can take steps outside and convert them into coins that unlocks various items in the store (for free) without entering any payment info.
In doing research for designing Avanch during my final semester at Cal State East Bay, Americans are often dealing with the struggles of staying motivated and staying fit because either they are just too busy with their 9 to 5 job or they don't enjoy living a healthy lifestyle. This article by Very Well Fit goes deep into the struggles of managing weight loss.
In return, the hope in designing Avanch is to solve this issue without any constraints for everyday Americans & be engaged to participate fulfilling an active lifestyle by solving their respective goals for being fit.
I'd like to put in perspective the audience Avanch is specifically aiming for.
Avanch is catered for people who aspire or routinely stays fit whether you're at a job that's associated with labor work, standing up during your whole shift, marathon runners, or just taking a stroll in your friendly neighborhood park; it's all about understanding the audience Avanch serves because at the end of the day, age is just a number.
Overall, these are the categories of people that I like to specifically engage because they have a broad scope on their experiences and disciplines of walking or jogging.
In reality, as a designer, it's imperative to ask the right questions in their overall views of exercise, the lifestyle they live, & motivation behind it.
These particular questions help derive their viewpoint on exercise and get in the right mind frame to build Avanch from the ground up. This is based out of 10 anonymous users worldwide using reddit (r/fitness) as my main source to communicate.
What's your opinion on exercise and staying motivated on being fit?
How often do you exercise based on your overall busyness in your life?
After finishing your exercise, do you feel rewarded for your overall effort?
Here is a brief look at the analysis from the above questionnaire of the corresponding three questions from users personal experience with exercise.
For the 10 users, a lot of their opinions were based on their overall feeling of exercise and their answers were matched with their general viewpoints. On how long it took to fill the survey, it was, at a maximum, 5 minutes. I felt the longer the survey took, the less interest I was going to get for users to fill out what they overall thought in the reddit - fitness forum.
For example, one user brought up to me that they exercise in spurts because he has 3 part time jobs that are all labor intensive. He does exercise, but just doesn't have the time to do it. Based on his response, he's in the category for, "Exercise" (2-3x a week).
These insights will gauge the direction for Avanch in how exercise needs to be implemented and designing certain elements that can be helpful later on:
4 out of 10 users loved
the feeling of exercise!
2 out of 10 users exercise only in
spurts based on their work-life balance
4 out of 10 users felt
rewarded for exercising.
Avanch has two main competitors: Sweatcoin and Lympo. Each have their pros and cons, but it's more important to extract their strengths and make the most of the opportunuity.
After gathering insights from questionnaires and looking into analysis, it's time to put together what features to add and brainstorm what needs to be accomplished for Avanch to bring value in the product.
6 users recommended a simplification of just fitness alone in how they view their stats.
4 users thought it would be a good idea to have a variation of finding search options & filtering for finding items.
0 users would not recommend a paywall because they either have a lot going on or just don't support the idea of paying something extra just to stay fit.
When I rush to class early in the morning, I often think about how I go about my day without injuring myself because of the stress. I'm particularly mindful of the stats that are associated with your body in how much you can push and how much you need to rest with my oura ring. But as a kinesiology major, I know how important to study those numbers and look out for myself in how I stay motivated.
If I have an app that can enable me to get rewarded for all the walking i'm doing around the campus and fun activities i'm partaking, this could be a game changer that I can vibe with!
I find it frustrating that I don't have time to exercise sometimes. Whenever i'm free, i'll take advantage of it, but more often than not, I haven't been active in the way i'm supposed to. Raising a family is important to me, so as a fitness instructor, I can only do so much as a single mother.
With a family to raise, time management is key for me. If I can be rewarded walking around the house and fulfill my obligations as a a fitness instructor who can work from home, that would be my personal, ideal situation. Key here is balancing the in-betweens.
As a Physical Ed teacher at my local high school, I don't have the energy to expend and fulfill my obligations to do my daily, evening jog. It's my only chance to run because in the morning, I have meetings to attend.
Running gives me a pure sense of fulfillment and relief from when i'm not working. It's ironic that I get to deal with young athletes on an everyday basis but i'm also a fanatic jogger so I love the adrenaline it gives me when I have a chance to run and burn calories. Ideally, it would be nice for me to still be active while I teach!
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Here is the style guide for Avanch. It's always good to show off the typography and colors for mobile and web. It's also equally important for cross platforms to maintain autonomy and consistent presentation as well.
Here is the introduction of Avanch! This process let's one of our users like Alex Ware, walk through the sign in // sign up process and onboarding screens for what Avanch has to offer.
The dashboard presents a unique experience for users to take steps as they go about their day. This feature is important in regards to functionality and ease of use when walking and recording steps. Whether you're walking inside or outside, as long as you press the play button, anything is possible!
In the home page, Alex starts his day looking at the current amount of steps he has, offers that can be unlocked, and recent steps he took.
After refreshing, Alex sees 500 Avanch Coins that can be unlocked. But he is craving more. He's thankful he's a physical education teacher, so he decides he wants to walk even more!
In the store front for Avanch, you can use you purchase items using your coins that have been converted from walking. This is a cool, unique, and innovative way to reward yourself and see if you can find any goods that users like, all without entering your credit card info.
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Alex can find affordable Avanch items he likes and add them to the cart.
As Alex scrolls down, the my cart button and navigation bar for "500 AVH Coins" is a fixed position, so it stays as a sticky header without him going back up that saves him time.
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When Alex has his mind made up, My Cart pops up and he gets to have the option to review his purchases without spending a single penny.
After a hard day's work, Alex can relax, kick back, and see his profile to adjust anything that he needs to do to maximize his usage.
Check out the web version of Avanch down below! Wanted to create a cross platform and make this as consistent and seamless as possible. The only difference is that you can't record steps carrying a macbook with you, but on web, you can view your stats and still buy items from the Avanch store.
Getting feedback has always been a great way to understand how the general audience responds to the product in what they think about & what can be improved. Below, are their general views of Avanch about being rewarded for exercise if this was fully funded.
"I would recommend this app especially people who like to achieve a goal in a day".
"I would recommend this to my fitness friends. There needs to be a few new iterations for some pages, but it has a lot of potential to be used in the fitness industry".
Overall, if there was anything that I would like to do differently in designing Avanch, it would be the opportunity to design an interface for a wearable because it could bring another set of audience on how they seek being fit.
The general consensus for Avanch, so far, has been positive from the visuals to the execution for how the product works, but that would be my biggest what if.
For Usability Testing is a great way to get feedback from your core audience whether the progression is projecting upwards or whether the product that was initially set in the brainstorming session should be something to take a step back and holistically re-evaluate.
In totality, I'm happy to see the overall feedback was favorable about the product itself and the general consensus for testers. Here are the biggest takeaways and what can be improved down below.
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