Trainador
My role: Founder & designer | 2020
Goal: Transcending the “Usability-Functionality Trade-off” in a workout program builder in a mobile CRM made for personal trainers
Overview
This state of the art approach to personal training management offers all in one access to all of your client’s workout programs, training schedules, assessments, and contact information in one platform.
Trainador app saves you time, effort, and headaches when it comes to managing multiple personal training clients at once.
The Challenge
While doing user research, it was clear that competitors either had adequate customizability options with poor ease-of-use, or they had the opposite problem. Trainador’s value prop is that it provides the highest control AND easiest to use
Discovery
Understanding the Context and the User
First step, we had to know the research environment inside and out. We conducted interviews with 7 research assistants and students (Masters, PhD, Post-doc) as well as a couple professors from a variety of research backgrounds to learn the process of conduct physiological experiment. Our main focus was to learn the way they dealt with data, from collecting data to using it, and how they managed the entire process.
Zoom with personal trainer
Script: UXR questions
Research values and training practices on social media
DISCOVERY
Findings about User…
Some text underneath here…
DISCOVERY
High-level journey map
As a summary of the reserach, this is what I found…
DISCOVERY
Findings about the Industry…
More specifically, how do trainers conceive of fitness plans, and what are the steps they follow when creating them for their clients. ALL types of fitness programs need to be easy to build in the app, so we sought to understand the diversity and commonalities of these plans.
Finding (1 of 4): Standard weekly structures
There is consistency amongst ALL programs in terms of weekly structure. Here are the most common weekly structures:
- Push/Pull
- Push/Pull/Legs
- Upper/Lower
- Full Body (3 or 4 times per week)
- Full Body (10 min every day)
- Bro Split
Solution Preview
How can we use that finding in the experience?
In order to pick a name for the day, and to help the trainers pick exercises for any particular day faster – I gave them quick options for most common types of workouts.
Finding (2 of 4): Standard weekly structures
There is consistency amongst ALL programs in terms of weekly structure. Here are the most common weekly structures:
- Push/Pull
- Push/Pull/Legs
- Upper/Lower
- Full Body (3 or 4 times per week)
- Full Body (10 min every day)
- Bro Split
Solution Preview
How can we use that finding in the experience?
In order to pick a name for the day, and to help the trainers pick exercises for any particular day faster – I gave them quick options for most common types of workouts.
Finding (3 of 4): Most of the time, only reps change week-to-week
When a user starts a new week, they’re usually repeating what was done the prior week. It is most common for weeks to only change by reps, not by exercises. When full body exercise, there is no name for day given
Solution Preview
How can we use that finding in the experience?
In order to pick a name for the day, and to help the trainers pick exercises for any particular day faster – I gave them quick options for most common types of workouts.
Finding (4 of 4): Most of the time, only reps change week-to-week
- Supersets, circuits and HIIT programs are very common and have highly divergent user flows. All must be accommodated in the app. Types of layouts: HIIT, Circuit, Supersets, Straight Sets, Pyramid Sets.
Solution Preview
How can we use that finding in the experience?
In order to pick a name for the day, and to help the trainers pick exercises for any particular day faster – I gave them quick options for most common types of workouts.
DISCOVERY
What’s different about how our users build fitness plans?
Although many people can build fitness plans, we did research on how specifically personal trainers go about this process.
We discovered several unique ways personal trainers create plans:
- Reuse plans frequently:
- Coaches generally assign the same exact workout program to all of their clients.
- After assigning a pre-made workout program, they will then do small modifications based on injuries and goals.
- Follow-along videos
- Another finding was that it’s extremely common for personal trainers to have already created online follow-along workout programs.
- They seek a way to present those follow-along workout videos in a structured way.
- Circuits & supersets:
- Personal trainers prefer to make their routines dynamic so that their client has more fun.
- Circuits and supersets can add extreme complexity to a routine… so their preference for this is particularly notable for the design process.
- Specialties:
- Most trainers have a specific focus or brand. For example, one may specialize in athletes, another specializes in breathwork, another specializes in senior citizens, etc.
- Frequently, this means there may be unique, obscure exercises that they want to put in the program.
- Or it may mean that they have a unique way of explaining the same exercise (e.g. emphasizing breathing in a movement).
DISCOVERY
Limitations
Trainador’s exercise library
There will be approximately 5,000 exercises in the database ultimately. It is controlled by a janky admin panel.
The created dashboard helped reveal many issues about the exercise database. First, we do not have not have enough data to know which exercises are the most popular amongst our potential users – this means sorting exercises appropriately may be difficult. We don’t have enough data to sort by popularity. Second, we can’t manually add all possible exercises in our admin panel because they’re seemingly unending.
Ideation
Process Flow
Created a process flow before wireframing
IDEATION
Title for this new section
IDEATION
High Fidelity Wireflows
Task: Adding an exercise with quick filter
Step 1. User thinks about “muscle” before which specific exercise.
Step 2. Then top used exercises for that muscle are shown.
Step 3. Review saved exercises.
Task: Selecting sets, reps, weight, more
Step 1. Giving an adequate hint that reps, sets needs to be selected
Step 2. Automatically starting out with 3 sets
Step 3. The chosen reps and sets change for ALL the exercises automatically
Task: Adding an exercise with quick filter
Step 1. User thinks about “muscle” before which specific exercise.
Step 2. Then top used exercises for that muscle are shown.
Step 3. Review saved exercises.
Handoff & test
Handoff
Put all details in jira: There will be approximately 5,000 exercises in the database ultimately. We created a dashboard to manage the exercises.
Qualitative Research
Remote usability tests
After paper and Sketch prototypes, we prototyped with Beta app over Zoom
Quantitative Research
KPI’s & A/B testing
Utilized Firebase for A/B testing and studying activity
Largest drop-off was when users were *search exercises* screen. This meant we needed to follow up with qualitative research to find the issue. With this information, we can design & iterate
Summary
Overall, through quantitative and qualitative data, we confirmed a high NPS and task completion in creating a routine. However, there are large flows in the creation of circuits and a need for more exercises in the database. This will be the next steps in the design and development process.