Gym Bums

Timeline: September 2024 — December 2024

The outcome of a ten week project for COMP_SCI 329: Human-Computer Interaction Studio. We aimed to develop a solution that encouraged college-age students inexperienced in working out — “Gym Bums” — to achieve their fitness goals.

Design Team: Nandan D., Stefan F., William T., Beatrice V., Kris Y.

UX Design User Research

Why don’t people go to the gym?

  • Problem statement ver. 1

    Working out is a difficult and nebulous task, specifically in terms of fitness goals. Time, energy, and knowledge restrictions can also make it hard to decide to follow through on fitness plans and goals, especially for people who have never had these goals and are interested in trying it out.

    The user wants to take ownership of their fitness journey but lacks the self-motivation and discipline to do so.

  • Problem statement, ver. 2

    The user is in their early twenties and inexperienced (has not gone to the gym in the last three months) and wants to feel healthier, grow stronger or improve their appearance. They want to do this by going to the gym, but self-guided routines and existing applications fail to overcome misperception of required commitment, lack of exercise knowledge and fear of judgment — all of which dampens motivation toward working out.

  • Problem statement, ver. 3

    The user is a person in their 20s who does not consistently go to the gym and wants to improve their appearance, physical health, and strength. They aim to do this through developing a gym routine, but existing health and tracking apps, as well as analog tools and calendars, do not overcome users’ fear of being judged, lack of technical knowledge, and all-or-nothing mentality, negatively impacting their appearance and health progress.

  • Problem statement, ver. 4

    The users are people in their 20s who don’t consistently go to the gym, but want to improve their physical appearance. Existing apps/trackers don’t overcome fear of judgment, lack of knowledge, and all or nothing mindset.

    Our needfinding suggested that though these college-age students were saying health and strength as reasons first, both experienced and inexperienced users alike had an underlying goal to improve their outward appearance and appeared to correlate this with success at the gym.

  • Problem statement, ver. 5

    College-age people without a current fitness plan want to feel healthier and/or look better, but existing fitness trackers and apps do not overcome the all-or-nothing mentality, fear of judgment and lack of technical knowledge these users face — which hinders their ability to reach their goals.

  • Problem statement, ver. 6

    College-age students who don’t consistently go to the gym want to improve their appearance by developing a consistent gym routine, but existing solutions don’t overcome their fear of judgment, all-or-nothing mentality, lack of knowledge that get in the way of progress.

Testing Plan

Early on in the design process, the team and I had to redefine what the “riskiest risk” was in our testing plan. We thought if we fiddled with the interface, we could help our users achieve their goals and iterated almost immediately after a first round of needfinding.

“Is this really going to get users to the gym?” Our professor asked us after he overheard an animated conversation between the team.

Design Argument

Our design will work as we have narrowed down our user group and eliminated the barriers for this user group. The user has the potential to succeed but is unable to due to the order of their priorities. In other words, they have the mindset of a “gym bro,” but they do not have the prioritization to seek a mentor, schedule time in the gym, or learn new workouts. Our argument resolves the scheduling and knowledge gap through a gym bro partnership so that users can become bros themselves.

Design Characteristics

  1. Bro matching system: aspiring gym goer is matched with a stranger “bro” or friend “bro” (with the “bro” acting as a proxy for technical knowledge and accountability)

  2. Scheduler: matching accounts for time, date and place of these workouts, with the bro

  3. Nomination system: as fitness is a lifestyle change, a bro to gym “bum” nomination can further the “bum’s” accountability

    • Accounting for intermediate outcomes

      • It’s a binary “go to gym” or “don’t go to gym” as the testing stands now

    • Widening user testing pool

      • The user base we tested on was mostly male. Women and gender non-conforming folks face unique challenges in the fitness space and have historically been excluded from solutions, and further work on Gym Bums should account for that.

  • I learned a lot about the importance of prioritization and adaptability in UX redesigns. As I was working on a live product, I was forced to remain flexible with the solutions that could feasibly be implemented.