Healthy Lifestyle Habits

By Umaid Malik

Introduction

A super app in health and fitness including screen time habits is quite a big app. One could say and app with this many goals is counterintuitive to reducing screen time usage. Locking the user out of the app if they spend too much screen time would be a terrible design choice. The choice belongs to the user. The app would only encourage the user to incorporate healthy screen habits and a healthy lifestyle.

Understanding the problem

Good health and fitness are an important aspect of improving one one's quality of life. There's a correlation with excessive screen time usage being associated with anxiety, sleep issues, weight gain and many other possible physical and mental health effects.

Ideally, we would want an app that will encourage the user with healthy screen habits by providing a means to reduce it with physical exercise information, tools to log workouts, a community forum to achieve similar goals, meal planning with analytics, and encouraging good sleep habits.

Research

The app would have to be designed using the UX/UI design process. To start of the research a google forms survey was created to ask the participant on their thought on health and wellness apps.

Surveys

One of the key aspects of health I wanted to ask the participants was of fitness. Whether it be bodyweight training, weight training, yoga, or meditation, I believe that a routine in physical fitness will help in in reducing the overall screen time, stress, improving physical overall health for most people.

Habits

The majority of the participants are getting the recommended or acceptable amount of sleep, However, a sizeable 27.6% are still not getting good night's rest.

App Usage

The participants were asked if they used any fitness apps or nutrition apps. For both questions, 51.7% answered yes. For sleeping apps, only 27.6% answered yes. Even less so for mood tracking apps at 13.8% responding with yes.

Fitness Activity

With the pandemic going on, most of the participants exercise at home now with or with any equipment.

Key Fitness Goals

This was an important question to ask the participants. It was important to know what the user would be looking for the right app. It is essential to understand their goals and make sure the goals of the user align with the features provided by the app. Knowing their goals makes it easier to generate user personas.

For survey question, it was realized that most users would want to improve their mobility, lose weight, sleep better, gain muscle, build strength, more endurance, and have more confidence and energy. It was understood that there are many reasons to stay active.

Training Hindrances

Time, motivation, and work are the strong contributors preventing the participants from exercising as much as they like to. Family balance, confidence, and knowledge in exercise are the minor contributors.

Upon asking the survey participants on the benefits and/or drawbacks of health related apps, many matters were learned. One person wrote that they would be a general benefit especially during pandemic times. Another wrote a drawback on having unnecessary pressures on an app planning your diets and fitness routines.

Most of the participants found that social media apps were detrimental to your health and well-being.

“Ones that make you compare yourself to other people and ones that encourage you to stay on them as long as possible.”

On asking about the types of apps the participants find to improve their healthy habits, it was revealed that reminder apps, sleep tracking apps, meal logging, and workout logging apps would be the heart of improving their healthy habits.

“Apps that you can log workouts and meals into, or apps that that time your screen usage and send many notifications to you for reminders.”

The kinds of apps that the participants find could increase their happiness would be apps that encourage fitness and working towards a goal.

“Apps that show you how to workout at home without equipment.”

“Apps that encourage fitness and working towards goals.”

“Apps where I can connect with other people, meditation, etc.”

Every person has different needs but they are not all too different. The survey helped in knowing the what the user’s value and require of a health and fitness app. All the survey information is valuable in creating user personas.

Personas

Three personas were created to show the possible types of users that would be attracted to the app.

The Desk Jockey

Archie is the type of user who has exercised before but never really on a consistent basis. Either due to work, family work, motivation, or stress. Though overtime, this type of user realized they want to change. Maybe they feel have less energy now want to feel refreshed. For Archies case, being a desk jockey and not being too conscious of what he eats, wants to shed some weight and feel better.

The Curious

Erika is a represents a user who wants to fit and healthy but never went to a gym because they felt a little intimidated. None their friends were involved in any fitness activities. There was never a push to get Erika to start exercising. She knows that it will a great to her if she does, so downloading the app would be her trying to get her foot in the door. People should not feel rushed to start exercising, it should gradually come at their pace.

The Powerlifter

Keith is the kind of user who has some experience training. He has followed established powerlifting/strength programs. Keith would want an app where he can record and keep track of his training activities. He would also like keep track of his eating to track his weigh gain goals. He would want to be part of community with similar goal. A community forum will allow him to post question and write about topics related to his interests. Members of the forum community would give their responses and suggestions.

User Journeys

Archie's Journey

Archie’s journey shows him using the to start exercising and meal planning. The results for him would to recommend the app to friends and maintaining a healthier lifestyle.

Sketches

Sketch 1

Sketches are a great of quickly design the user interface. The first six activity layouts show the initial sign in page. Upon first opening the app the user must create an account and enter their email address. Once their account is created they have access to the main page of the app. In this page, they can select to go to five other sections of the app which are “Meal Planning”, “Exercise”, “Sleep”, “Community”, and “Screen Time.”

Sketch 2

The above six page layouts show the pages within the Exercise section, and Screen Time section.

Sketch 3

These last page layouts show the exercise selection the user can pick based on muscle group and the rest of the sections for meal planning, and the sleep layout.

Wireframes

The wireframes are a more detailed version of the sketches drawn. With it, a slight more detail view of the layouts can be presented.

App Wireframe 1

App Wireframe 1

App Wireframe 1

Color Palette

The choice of a midnight blue color palette is ideal for a night mode and to be simple on the eyes of the user.

Color Palette

Typography

The choice of typography went to the Roboto Light. It has a simple and easy to read look. The app should be simple to use and be easy to navigate

Typography 1
Typography 2
Typography 3

Final Design

Combining the typography, chosen color palette, with the wireframes creates the final design. The final layout design was created in Figma.

Start
Create Account
Main Page

The dark blue color palette is meant to be easy on the eyes with a minimalisitc look.

Start
Create Account
Main Page

The forum is meant to help the user gain knowledge in aspects they are not familiar with and ask questions for support.

Start
Create Account
Main Page

The user can create, plan, and search for existing exercise programs.

Start
Create Account
Main Page

They haves to analytics and history to track their progress.

Start
Create Account
Main Page

Screen usage can be limited by setting the notifications. Apps will not be locked as this will cause frustration to the user. Still though, with notifications, the user ultimately has the final say on listening to the apps usage warnings.

Start
Create Account
Main Page

Similar to the workout section, the user can track their eating habits, all their recorded food history, and search and create recipes.

Figma Prototype

This is the prototype built using Figma.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the effectiveness of this app depends on the users willingless to follow through with the reccomendations and to understand the knowledge gained will be foundational. A foundation in healthy habits will help in keeping a person be more healthy and the app will help in that regard.