Sep. − Dec. 2021
Reach Experience Design
Service and UIUX design
Overview
To gain an in-depth understanding of user needs and current service models, we conducted user interviews, observations, competitor analysis. And analyzed the current service processes, needs, and pain points.
Thus putting forward comprehensive suggestions, including appropriate market positioning and service models and detailed UIUX design.
Methods & Tools
-
User interview
-
Field observation
-
User Journey Map
-
Competitor analysis
-
Persona
My Role
-
UX Research
-
(Service Design)
-
(Strategy Design)
Background
Equipped with top-notch facilities and an excellent location, yet no customers come through.
Nettown Corporation is a health sports company with middle-aged and elderly people as its main customer base. Centered on its device "Babybot", it accurately assesses users' physical conditions and creates in-depth customized exercise services with the assistance of coaches.
They recently opened a new venue in Taipei City's Xinsheng Park, which is located in the main place for citizens’ leisure and entertainment, hoping to be closer to citizens' lives and promote their services, but customers have not visited as expected.
Project Goal
Understand...
The Target users
and their needs
The Pain points of
Service and Operation
Thus...
Optimize or Develop the services
of Netown
Project Timeline
Comprehensive Research and Designs
User Research
2 months
-
Competitor analysis
-
User interview
-
Field observation
-
User journey map
-
Persona
Design Suggestions
2 months
-
UIUX design
-
Service design
-
Strategy design
My Role
-
Responsible for User Research.
-
Assist in Service and Strategy design.
Competitor Analysis
Precisely analyze the usage process and advantages
to optimize Netown APP
The most influential competitors in sports
One of the key features of Babybot is that it can be used with Apps, which has similarities with many sports and fitness apps.
So we selected the most popular sports and fitness apps on the market as the objects of competitive product analysis.
Deconstruct Using Journey
We focus on the analysis of the service process first, to grasp the current operation mode of popular sports apps.
Analysis of the advantages of each competitor at each stage
After analyzing the process, we discussed good design for each stage, which gave us a better understanding of the services needed.
User Interview
Deeply understand the needs of the elderly for exercise,
analyze the issues of Netown service.
In this interview, we aim to understand the thoughts and preferences of our target group, "middle-aged and elderly people," regarding examination and exercise, as well as the difficulties they face with current service operations.
Therefore, we designed the interview in three stages:
1. Pre-interview: Understanding their daily life and exercise habits.
2. Service testing: Identifying the current service process and pain points.
3. Post-interview: Gathering their opinions on Netown service.
middle-aged
elderly
1.
Pre-interview
Understanding daily life and exercise habits.
In the pre-interview stage, we thoroughly explored the respondents' lifestyles and their experiences with physical examination and exercise.
We followed the 5W1H framework and arranged the questions in ORID sequence, progressing from surface-level to in-depth understanding.
Part of the interview guideline:
-
What types of exercise do you usually engage in, what do you prepare before, and what do you do after?
-
Where and when do you usually exercise?
-
Do you exercise alone or with someone else (e.g., a coach, friends, or family)?
-
Why did you choose this particular exercise?
2.
Service
Testing
Identifying the current service process and pain points.
In this stage, we simulated a real service experience by having the coach lead the respondents as usual: starting with body examinations, followed by muscle strength exercises, and concluding with aerobic activities.
This allowed us to identify issues and guidance related to the BabyBot interface.
3.
Post-interview
Gathering their opinions on Netown service.
After experiencing the service, we conducted in-depth interviews to thoroughly understand the challenges within the service, its advantages and disadvantages compared to past related experiences, in order to grasp its core value and areas for improvement.
Part of the interview guidelines:
-
What were the most difficult or confusing aspects during examination and exercise?
-
What were the smoothest or most enjoyable aspects during examination and exercise?
-
Compared to past experiences, what do you find most unique about the services?
-
If you were to recommend our services to friends and family, what would you say?
Research Insight
Persona / User journey / Pain points
Persona
Integrate customer types
To give owners a clearer understanding of customer types, we divided customers into two categories through interviews: The middle-aged and the elderly.
Age: 50~65 yr
Work: Office worker
Family: Husband and 2 kids
Location: New Taipei City
Excercise Time
-
Weekday before work.
-
Holiday morning.
Excercise Location
-
The gym near home.
-
The gym is located conveniently.
Middle-aged
“To prevent illness and prepare for old age, I am very willing to invest in and try various new methods!”
Motivation and Goal
Stay young, and away from physical illness.
Requirements
-
Personal instruction: Need detailed guidance; doesn't want to spend time on group socializing.
-
Cleanliness: Wants to stay clean after exercise; doesn't want to go to work all sweaty.
-
Supervision: Lacks self-discipline; needs someone to remind and prompt them.
Preferred Excercise
-
1:1 coaching class at the gym.
-
Muscle training, aerobic exercise
Age: 65+ yr
Work: Retired, occasionally attends senior courses.
Family: No cohabiting relatives.
Location: Taipei City
Excercise Time
-
Irregularly, during free time
Excercise Location
-
At home.
-
The park nearby.
Elderly
"Although exercise can improve my physical condition,
I still don't want to spend money and suffer."
Motivation and Goal
Maintaining normal physical fitness and daily functioning
Requirements
-
Easy to get started: Don't want or find it difficult to learn complex equipment.
-
Additive: Can exercise while doing other things, not just exercise.
-
Light exercise: Doesn't want to feel tired or in pain during exercise
Preferred Excercise
-
Stretching exercises
-
Walking
-
Stationary biking
User Journey Map
Showcase the pain points and needs at each stage.
We divided the overall service process into three stages: examining, exercising, and reporting. Then conducted a detailed analysis to identify different roles' pain points and needs at each stage.
THOUGHTS
ACTIONS
Problem Define
Based on the research methods mentioned above, including competitive analysis and interview testing results, we identified five major categories of issues as follows:
1. The environment and atmosphere are less attractive
-
The appearance of the experience center makes it unable to easily enter.
-
Cannot figure out the special point from other similar companies.
2. The terms in the examination are too difficult to understand
-
A large number of professional terms that cannot be understood.
-
Don't know the importance of each item to them.
3. The operation in exercising is complicated and cannot be completed independentl
-
Personal settings are diverse and complex, making it more difficult to learn.
-
The benefits brought by each exercise mode are not clear, making it difficult to choose.
4. Not knowing if they are doing right when examining and exercising
-
The animations shown on the interface are ambiguous, so correct actions remain unclear.
5. Lack of incentives for return visits
-
Lack of incentive mechanism leads to reduced willingness to return visits.
Design Suggestion
UIUX Design / Service Design / Strategy Design
Overall optimizing goal of each stage
Analyze service stages to achieve comprehensive optimization.
According to the results of the competitive product analysis and the problems found in the interview, we divided this service process into four stages: Attract, Examination, Exercise, and Return. Then proposed items can be further optimized in each stage.
1. Attract: Cube Design
Highlight the uniqueness of the venue and create an inviting atmosphere.
Netown is the only health and fitness center in Taiwan located within a park, where you can constantly hear the sounds of birds and insects. This unique feature will provide Netown with a distinctive promotional advantage.
Problems
Uneasily to enter
Design Suggestion
Lower the entry barriers to create an easy-to-join environment.
Lack of special point
Highlight the unique environmental feature: Forest-like.
Before
We recommend placing an experience cube outside the facility, as shown in the image on the right. This allows passersby to experience the service without having to open the heavy main door.
By incorporating forest-related visual elements, it will blend seamlessly with the environment and highlight its unique features.
2. Examine: Baby bot UI optimization
(1) Provide easily understandable instructions through visualization.
Problems
Unsure about the correctness of the movements
Design Suggestion
Provide clear demonstration videos to enhance clarity.
Before
Based on the results of competitive analysis, it was found that using real-life video demonstrations can effectively enhance understanding of the exercise instructions. Therefore, we recommend recording comprehensive testing videos for explanation purposes.
(2) Emphasize the meaning of the measurement items and results
Professional and obscure terminology
Provide simple & clear graphs or explanations
to help understand the content.
Does not understand how the data impact to them
Provide visual aids to help
understand and monitor physical condition.
Before
-
Add standard value ranges below the test data to help users understand their status.
-
Provide a help feature with detailed explanations to clarify the meaning of each item for users.
-
Present the data using visual charts and facilitate comparisons with the general population to make the data more relatable.
Use visual aids to help users understand the significance of the data.
For example, users with insufficient muscle mass, display a corresponding human body illustration.
3. Exercise: Baby bot UI optimization
(1) Provide easily understandable instructions through visualization.
Problems
Unsure about the correctness of the movements
Design Suggestion
Provide clear demonstration videos to enhance clarity.
Before
Assist in Understanding:
-
Import multi-angle video to demonstrate actions (same as examination video.)
-
Showcase the training process to increase the sense of control.
-
Provide motion tracking to help understand the movement completion.
(2) Assist in choosing the most suitable exercise options.
Difficulty in selecting the appropriate mode
Describe the differences between each mode
and provide recommended options.
Before
Assist in Selecting:
-
Display historical records and provide suggestions.
-
Provide descriptions of each mode to help understand the differences between.
4. Return: Personal Project
Assist in building the exercise habit by customized service
Problems
Lack of incentives for return visits
Design Suggestion
Provide customized exercise plans and visible outcome.
According to the Fogg Behavior Model proposed by renowned behavioral scientist Professor Fogg, the initiation of any behavior requires three fundamental elements: sufficient "Motivation," the "Ability" to complete the task, and a "Trigger" that triggers the action.
Therefore, we also applied this model to the return mechanism design.
Personalized services include not only quantified external data
but also qualitative cognitive information.
Netown App UX Design
In this project, we proposed an important concept for integrating the Fogg Behavior Model into the Zhenmao App flow design:
(1) Ability: Upon logging in, the user's current state will be defined based on examined data. To align with the forest theme, we present the status in the form of animals.
(2) Motivation: During the motivation phase, instead of using numbers, we use visual representations. This helps users choose their goals better and increases their desire to achieve them.
(3) Trigger: We set exercise reminder as triggers to initiate behavior.
Finally, based on the chosen options and entered information, users will receive a personalized exercise plan.
Outcome
In this project, we conducted a comprehensive analysis through interviews, testing, and competitive analysis. Based on our research findings, we provided recommendations on Baby Bot interface design, environmental design, and service and strategy enhancements.
The client was very impressed and pleasantly surprised by our findings, highly praising our design recommendations and indicating that they would be incorporated into future development plans.
Netown Technology's General Manager:
"This collaboration has comprehensively and thoroughly addressed the overall issues currently facing this industry,"
"By incorporating consumer behavior and experience, we have clearly defined the value of the service."
Based on the success of this project, we were also invited to give a presentation at the Taiwan Design Research Institute.
Significantly enhanced our company's reputation in the UX industry.
資料來源：
Personal Reflection
Provide different service strategies based on each persona
In this project, we comprehensively understood user needs and pain points and proposed corresponding design recommendations. These outcomes were highly praised by the client and achieved significant success.
However, I believe a shortcoming was that our research identified two distinct target audience types, but we did not provide differentiated service strategies for each. Instead, we only offered general recommendations that aimed to meet the needs of both groups.
Therefore, if given another opportunity, I would like to propose different service strategies tailored to each persona to help Netown achieve even better sales results.