Esther Li-Chen
Caleb Shih
Claire Wang
Sunny Park
User Research
Product Design
UI/UX Design
Interaction Design
Figma
Equinox+ (EQX+) is the mobile app for the luxury health and fitness company, Equinox, with the mission to create the possibility for people to maximize the potential within themselves.
Despite their hundreds of thousands of members, only a very small percentage use the app past the check-in button on the home page. Currently, Equinox members do not fully take advantage of the ‘Activity’ section of the EQX+ App. With that, health metrics are not effectively displayed and do not provide a comprehensive overview of a member’s fitness journey.
Because of this, Equinox’s product design team challenged our team at Berkeley Innovation, a human-centered design consultancy at UC Berkeley, to redesign their Activity tab to increase user engagement and foster holistic fitness journeys.
Data visualizations would help users more clearly see personalized progress and trends
In this project, I led our team through research. One challenge we encountered was that we were not able to contact Equinox members for our research in the project. We tried asking the client if we could use non-Equinox gym-goers for our research, but they stated that Equinox members are vastly different from the average gym-goer. So, we looked into the surveys and interviews that the Equinox product design team conducted previously.
We also began Secondary Research with the aim of understanding who exactly our users are and what metrics they value the most in their workouts. Then, we performed Market Research to learn about how other similar apps motivate their users and which tracking features are the most effective/successful within these apps.
To converge and make sense of all of the data from our research, we created an affinity map, user journey maps, and user flows. Then, we narrowed down our "How might we..." question to narrow our scope.
Once we had clear insights from our research, we began our ideation process. After narrowing down our "How Might We..." question, we brainstormed, using methods like Crazy 8s and rapid ideation to see what features we wanted to change or implement.
We also determined that Archetypes B & C would be the most likely to use the new features in the Activity tab since they already book and monitor their group fitness and personal training sessions through the app. Thus, we decided to ideate with mostly their needs in mind; however, we also wanted to implement new features that would cater to Archetype A's needs, making the app more useful and appealing to all user groups.
We began to design distinctly for data visualization, motivational features, & celebrational designs.
Our biggest challenges were deciding which metrics to include, how they should be visualized, and what hierarchy they should have on the screen.
An important decision we made at this stage was to split up the data into day/week/month/views as users would be able to see both individual stats as well as how they compared over a period of time. Incorporating this feature meant that we had to consider how our data visualizations would scale, or if they should change in structure entirely.
However, an issue arose with the type of data that we could gather. Our client communicated that the app would have access to only “Equinox-specific metrics,” meaning data that came from the machines at the clubs, class sign ups, appointments and self-input information.
From this constraint, we began ideating how the Activity landing page’s layout could still celebrate member wins and reflect personal fitness journeys.
The biggest change we implemented was incorporating a day/week/month/year view, each with their own calendars and data visualizations.
When opening the tab, it’d still land on the month view just as it does now, so that users are easily accustomed to the update and can see data comparisons over a larger time period. If they want to choose a specific week or day, then they can easily move to each respective tabs and select the dates to look at their history.
The biggest change we implemented was incorporating a day/week/month/year view, each with their own calendars and data visualizations.
When opening the tab, it’d still land on the month view just as it does now, so that users are easily accustomed to the update and can see data comparisons over a larger time period. If they want to choose a specific week or day, then they can easily move to each respective tabs and select the dates to look at their history.
Implementing motivational notifications helps encourage users to keep going and help them achieve their fitness goals. We thought it would be beneficial to incorporate the notification in the page for the user to see it every time they check their activity; however, if they don't want the notification on their page, they can easily X it out.
One addition we explored to appeal to Archetype A - or, really anyone who works out with sets and reps - based on market research of other health apps, was including a method to log weights and exercises.
This would allow members to see a history of the types of training they’ve done, as well as track any increases in weight or strength.
As my second project with Berkeley Innovation, I was super excited, yet nervous to take on this challenging project with Equinox. Leading research in this project, I was able to utilize and develop my UX Research experience from my previous project with Lululemon. Most importantly, as my first real design project, I was able to develop my design capabilities, learning more about the ideation and prototyping processes.
One of the key lessons I learned from the Equinox project was the importance of empathy in the design process. Understanding the motivations, goals, and pain points of each type of user was critical in creating a user experience that resonated with them.
Huge thank you to the Equinox team and our client Molly Werner for their ongoing support and guidance throughout the project and beyond! I'm so grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with a team that helped me grow so much, both as a team member and a designer!
To begin our research, we decided that it would be important to learn about what employees want and what they value in their roles and work environment. This helped us begin to understand what questions would be useful to ask in surveys and interviews, ultimately guiding us to the next step in our research. Here are the findings from our preliminary research:
In this project, I was in charge of the synthesis process. I led my team through wrapping up interviews, narrowing down our "How might we..." question, and the process of affinity mapping & gathering insights.
We grouped our data into four main topics:
Then, we created subcategories and identified recurring patterns!
From our affinity map, we generated a list of educator needs and wants. Then, we arranged needs based on:
Finally, we identified High Priority and High Feasibility items to focus on in generating insights
One challenge we ran into was that when we made all the personas for each role, they all seemed quite similar due to their overlapping responsibilities. Thus, we decided to make one "main persona" that encapsulated all the similarities between each role. Then, we made "mini-personas" for each role to easily distinguish the differences between each role's painpoints, motivations, goals, etc.
Another issue we encountered was reflecting the accurate user journey for each role. The reason why this was so challenging was because no role has a linear journey, which is usually reflected by a line within journey maps. Thus, we had to think about how to portray their journey without making it seem linear.
Additionally, some roles complete tasks on a daily basis, while others complete tasks on a weekly basis. Thus, we reflected our journey maps accordingly, with some demonstrating the typical responsibilities in a week and others in a day.
We also included a technology chart, demonstrating a comprehensive look at our insights from each technology. For each technology, we included a section for functionality & usage, painpoints & frustrations, and our recommendations to communicate how we would change them in order to improve educators' experiences.
As my first project with UC Berkeley, this project taught me so much about the process of UX Research, helping me learn about the importance of empathy.
Through this experience, I discovered the impact of understanding and connecting with the perspectives and emotions of our users. Additionally, I learned about the importance of creating a nurturing environment where users can freely and authentically share their thoughts and feelings
On top of learning invaluable UX Research skills, I'm so grateful for my wonderful team, who became amazing friends throughout the process. I'd also like to thank our clients Michelle Sufka and Kayla Oliveira for giving us such thoughtful feedback, suggestions, and resources. Everyone involved truly made teamwork and collaboration so much fun and enjoyable, and I'll forever be thankful for this amazing experience as my first client project.
