Brisk App - Making daily exercise more achievable for everyone.
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Overview
Combining encouraging messages, progress tracking, gamification and social features to engage users helps simplify the process of beginning and sticking with an exercise routine.
A recent report indicated that Melburnians are not getting enough exercise. In this concept project, The Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation (LMFC) was seeking solutions on encouraging people to be proactive about this challenge as a community while focusing on health equity.
The brief
Melburnians are not getting enough exercise. We need to address this challenge as a community.
How might we create an engaging way for people to be proactive and stay motivated about regular exercise?
The research
Most people know they should exercise but many lack the motivation to begin a routine and stick with it for the long term. They find it boring or tend to give up if they stumble and find it hard to get started again.
Finding the unfamiliar scary, having a fear of failure and seeking a sense of connection contribute to people’s ability to change their behaviour for the long term. People can be motivated by activities that are easy to do and taking little steps with starting a new habit.
The solution
Brisk is a social walking app that helps users begin and stick with an exercise routine. The app encourages users to be proactive about daily exercise with the support of their friends, family and community.
Testing
We ran usability testing on the functionality and flow of our prototype.
• Is the navigation intuitive?
• Is the user able to create a group?
• How would the user see their progress?
• Is the user able to find where to edit their notification settings?
The results
Overall users were able to easily complete the task we gave them and we received positive feedback on the app design and features.
There was however some confusion on the hamburger menu to change settings. Users expected to manage their settings via their profile.
In addition, beginners didn’t like setting goals as they were worried about feeling guilty if they failed. Whereas, more experienced exercisers preferred it as it would help them stay on track. We decided to change the wording from “set goal” to “set pace” and have this customisable for users on the Settings screen.
Reflection
Gaining rich insights into what drives users to build habits and how they perceive failure took time and an empathetic ear.
Getting strangers to open up to their personal flaws and shortcomings while balancing the interviewer/interviewee relationship and controlling the structure of the interview without wasting the short amount of time we had was a rewarding experience.
One skill I have taken away from this project is how to build strong rapport early. In so doing I can better predict where to break the structure while maintaining comparative insights.