RESEARCH

In this project it was very important to focus on the research. In the last few years there has been a huge increase in apps for healthcare. Finding a niche and not ending up designing something that already exists was already a challenge.

While starting the desk research, I came across with a paper study about MAP training. According to this study, combining meditation and aerobic exercise reduces depression and rumination while enhancing synchronized brain activity. It is a win-win situation. On the other hand, I read several articles related to mindful running. Mindful running is about being mentally connected within your movement and not being distracted. Not distracted by other people, your thoughts, noise, technology, or cultural and social pressures. These two ideas were only a vague direction in the beginning, but what if I could find the answer to my question there? I decided to ask the possible users. For that I created the next research strategy:

• I did a thorough interview with a sport coach and psychologist. That solved a lot of doubts, and gave me some insights about possible answers to the question, that in the end pointed me to some possible pain points.
• With this information I launched a survey, from which I got 110 answers.
• I interviewed a sport professional trainer, and a semi-professional runner.
• I interviewed four regular people in terms of sport-relation.

DEFINING

Out of my broad affinity diagram I was able to find many trends, different pain points of different user types. The one that was connecting more directly with both the original challenge and my original question was the persistent feeling of failure that the people that are not able to build a habit around sport experience. The lack of motivation, in this case, acts like a loop:

• They are not motivated
• When they try again they put a lot of hopes on it and they put a lot of pressure over themselves
• Eventually they start to not deliver, and the pressure makes them feel they are failing again
• They give up, they feel they failed, and they are even less motivated for the next time

Pressure is the key word here. Not-sporty people feel pressure when they try to become sporty. The current approach of the sport apps is also not helping: goals. It doesn’t matter if they are mileage targets, heart rate zones, average paces and daily step totals. They give goals, when this user type needs guidance and preparation for failure (as part of the habit-construction process).

I took a “How might we” as a problem statement for my challenge, a more refined question than the original one:

The following hypothesis statement was shedding more light in the direction of the project:

Some other guidelines came from the research, and I created the following MOSCOW, that constituted my compass for the ideation stage.

IDEATING

The ideating sessions were completely dominated from the idea of integrating meditation as part of the process, in order to both improve the training results and give the users a more immediate improvement of their well-being. This seemed to be a good way of funneling motivation.

MAP training, also, because of its nature, was in the middle of the board because it was not focusing on goals, was focusing on well-being and on how to overcome the problems, allowing the “failure” in the process as part of it.

Lastly, the fact that my possible users were going to be beginners in the sport world, it should be something inviting, guiding, easygoing.

FINAL IDEA

The "tree idea" was something that came from multiple ideas. Since the beginning of the research, a lot of people were connecting running with nature, and well-being with nature. It made sense to integrate the idea. The basic idea is as follows.

Tree Idea Evolution and crossing with MOSCOW

The app is a connection between the user and a coach. The prototype is going to be based on the user side. On the coach side it should be more like a dashboard of clients. The user uses the app when they want to exercise (being it running, cycling or hiking). Any time that they exercise, the app follows the next structure:

• It asks the user what are they willing to do for exercising. Depending on the answer, the app proposes the viewing of a preliminary video, to guide the exercise. This pre-exercise video is like a cool-down of the day-today rush and preparing the mind to focus on the exercise.
• The exercise itself. Simple layout. It can incorporate an audio for the exercise time.
• After the exercise, the app proposes a video to wrap up the exercise time.
• Feedback. The app asks about the feelings and sensations of the user during the app.
• The user receives a tree after the exercise. The leaves colors, the type of tree would depend on how the user felt during the exercise, where the user was exercising. Additionally, he can collect animals that act like badges of the places the user exercises.

Eventually, the user will create a forest out of every tree generated (“Bosc” means forest in catalan). He/She can track his/her evolution by looking at that forest, that eventually would be a visualization of its relation and feelings towards exercising.

All the guiding/motivational videos the user is going to receive before and after each exercise are going to be based on his/her performance, since the data about every exercise is going to be analysed by a coach on the other end. This way every step of the habit construction is going to be tailored for the user's needs.

Also, there would be a “routes” section, that would perform some selected routes in the nature close to the user, explaining the route, highlights, sights,etc.

The three keys for the prototype are:

• Not focussing on numbers but in feelings, to take away the pressure of bad performance of the user.
• Adding motivation and guidance through tailored videos.
• Linking the project to nature, to create a stress free environment.

PROTOTYPE

Since the research part took so long (almost three of the four weeks available), the next steps had to be fast. I jumped directly to mid-fi to have a clear mind of the structure and the position of the elements on the screen. I elaborated a moodboard, trying to pick natural colors, with greens and yellows, and also some organic font and some beautiful illustrations as base.

Though all this ideas helped me in the consecution of the final prototype, I had to do some important decisions for the final design:

• Material design. This prototype should be something like an MVP. To not overcharge the developers, it was better if the first versions of the app were based on the material design material and guidelines. This affected not only the elements, but also the font used. For the moment it was going to be Roboto.
• Contrast and accessibility marked the color choosing. Green had to be darker, kind of an olive green, and it finally dominated the whole design.
• Some other colors were added for the tree leaves and feelings feedback...Two things guided me on picking those colors: accessibility and naturewise colors. Every color had to represent moods of the user, that would be represented in the colored leaves of the trees generated by every exercise.
• Illustrations were going to be important to add the final touch to the app, since it was important to transmit the stress-free mood idea to the user, remembering all the time the connection with nature. The illustration sets used were the image ID 1368928 from Stock Unlimited, part of their exclusive material, for the trees, and a cool hand drawing from freepik - de.freepik.com for the animals.

This was the final prototype.

NEXT STEPS

The next steps for Bosc would be:

• Deepen in the social side. Two future features highlighted through the ideation phase were the pictures section (kind of an instagram of your exercising) and the social section (possibility of sharing your forest, rearranging it and creating your user page, visiting other users…).
• UI. As explained in the previous section, material design was the base for this prototype. If the MVP would be working, the branding of the app could go deeper with fonts and personalized elements. Also, an important part would be a deep work on the illustrations.
• Some small gamification expansion could be added, to push the motivational side: number of forests visited, different animals to collect, race species, generating rare special trees after special circumstances…
• Closest relation with the coach behind. One of the things Bosc is trying to set is a pressure-free environment for the user when it comes to her/his relation with exercise. This includes the fact of knowing there is someone waiting for your performance. For those users that see that the system is working for them, a closer and more personal relationship system could be added: direct communication, personalized messages or tips, etc.
• The feedback and feeling part has to be improved, since it is the core engine of the training system.

LEARNINGS

• The importance of research: this project would have not been possible without the thorough research phase. Everything that can be seen in the project comes from a strong base, even the basic idea to it.
• Illustrations, though they are stetic details, play an important role when creating a mood, and ultimately a good experience. In this case I feel the chosen illustrations were not the best ones for the project. Something more organic and less childish would have worked better.