Fitpal is an application designed to help people reach their fitness goals by increasing fitness education and building a fitness community.
How might we educate and motivate people on how to reach their fitness goals in an affordable manner?
Have you ever put a ton of effort into working out and you still did not see results? Or ever heard of people “training for a summer body?” a terminology used to describe a large lack of motivation during the year until summer time. If your answer is yes you are not alone.
A core problem around the fitness space is that beginners and intermediate fitness enthusiasts do not have the knowledge to carry out workouts correctly to achieve their fitness goals. Not having the knowledge to carry out these goals creates lack of motivation, abandonment, injuries and frustration. 78% of respondents from my conducted survey mentioned that if there were no constraints they will use trainers to help them reach their goals due to the trainer’s guidance, knowledge and ability to keep trainees accountable. Although, the same respondents did not choose trainers when they considered constraints such as costs. For example, in New York the average salary of a New Yorker is $24.16 per hour, while the average cost of a personal trainer is $75-150 per hour. This difference makes meeting fitness goals without adequate knowledge a big challenge. Fitpal aims to increase user’s knowledge when carrying out fitness routines.
Additionally, Wilson and Brookfied (2009) noted that following a six-week exercise and goal setting program, all participants of their study achieved higher scores based on their motivation level, perceived choice and enjoyment. Having knowledge is not the only important factor when reaching fitness goals. People also need to be able to keep their motivation levels high to use their gained knowledge to reach goals, but people seem to struggle to keep these motivation levels high. According to my research survey, 54% of people abandon their workout goals due to lack of discipline and motivation. Fitpal aims to create a community where people can interact and challenge each other to keep motivation levels up.
To validate the problem space. A research survey was conducted with 27 participants. The goal of the survey was to understand the following:
Based on the responses from the conducted survey. The key insights were:
Please refer to the data synthesis document to find more in depth insights from the conducted survey. The survey was created to ensure that the problem space was valid and to eliminate any assumptions. While the participants of the survey represent our target customers, it is important to consider there was a 1 week time constraint for the data collection process hence, the responses represent a small subset of the target customers.
Based on customer research and survey, the following user stories were created with proposed solutions. In the first release we will be prioritizing our goal of educating our target customers.In future releases we will introduce features to help users build a fitness community.
As my next steps I will be working with a cross functional team which includes Engineers and UI/UX designers to develop the “hows” of my proposed solution.
As a product manager at Co.lab, here are my major takeaways:
1. Focus on the problem space and not the solution during the early stages of problem discovery.
2. Allow users to tell you what they need and do not try to force assumptions during the data collection stages. It is important to collect data without having a solution in mind.
3. It is very easy to get carried away with possible solutions but prioritizing according to goals, timeline and resources is vital.