What Strava could learn from TikTok
Using social giant TikTok to tweak Strava into a more engaging (and fun) product
In 2023, feeds are an almost normalised part of human lives. Checking into Twitter, looking for content on YouTube, swiping on Instagram, and whatelse. Me? I enjoy tracking my activities — climbing, biking, running — on Strava, and share my accomplishments with friends. It’s a great combination of self-motivation and showing off!
Many of you probably know Strava, but for the ones that don’t, it’s an app that lets users track their activities with GPS, saving it to their accounts, sharing it with friends or followers. You can check your progress as an athlete (yeah you are!) and join communities and challenges. Curious? Check out my profile and maybe try tracking your next run too!
Performance
Over the last 2 years, Strava has seen significant growth and expansion, including the following developments:
- Increased user base: Strava has continued to grow its user base and now has millions of users worldwide.
- New features and improvements: Strava has added several new features and made improvements to its existing features, such as its route builder, training plans, and social features.
- Expansion into new markets: Strava has expanded into new markets, including Asia and Europe, and has also made partnerships with major sports brands to offer premium features to users.
Overall, Strava has performed well over the last 2 years and has continued to grow and expand its offerings to users.
Strava is doing great, that’s perfectly clear. So, why are we even thinking about taking TikTok’s design — a platform with a totally different purpose and much younger users — and applying it to Strava? Well, that’s just it. We’re thinking about it, trying to figure out if it were to be an option, if Strava could be improved by looking at this social media app, at all.
Let’s break things down, shall we, starting with Strava.
Feed
Strava’s feed is basically a long list of activities other users have completed, with a wide range of possible sports to track. Depending on the chosen activity and choices made by the athlete, users are shown a title and subtitle, performance indicators, location, GPS route on a map, and finally, the given kudos and options to like, comment and share. These elements all have their own single purpose and function.
Showing users your performance 🏅
Consisting of user details, a location, description and performance indicators, the top part is the very foundation of an activity. It lets users describe their adventures, inspiring and motivating others while doing so, and it shows how the athlete actually completed the activity with indicators like pace, distance and time.
🎯 Purpose: introducing the athlete and their activity, with the indicators wowing followers and motivating them to get up and give it a go!
Showing users what’s out there 📷
The second part of the activity is the GPS map and/or the images an athlete choses to upload. It’s a vital part of Strava’s feed, with an accurate GPS map, 3D functionalities, privacy setting and more.
🎯 Purpose: helps showcasing the athlete’s latest adventure, where they’ve been, and what they’ve seen along the way, giving the user an idea of what’s out there to discover.
Showing you care 👍
Last but not least, the bottom and final part of an activity, is all about social impact. Telling athletes who’s a fan of their efforts, enabling users to like activities, comment on them, and letting them share these within their social circles.
🎯 Purpose: giving athletes the appreciation they deserve, motivating them to keep at it!
In short
Strava’s feed showcases the activities of athletes, with each item consisting out of three fundamental elements:
🏅 Activity details: telling users what the athlete has completed, motivating users to go and be active themselves!
📷 Activity map/images: revealing users where the athlete has been, wowing users to an effect that makes them want to see new places themselves.
👍 Appreciation: through kudos and comments, giving the athlete the appreciation they deserve, motivating the athlete to continue the good work and keep posting their activities.
Motivating and rewarding users is key to Strava’s immense user database and successful UX. Interested in the subject? Medium writer @Ajith Gonamanda talked about motivating users in his item “Understanding the user’s motivations and reward systems”.
King of Socials
Over the last few years, a new app has taken the app stores by storm: Tiktok. They have managed to beat every single social platform and they’re still growing — as fast as the weed in my own backyard — with more and more joining TikTok’s large population of users.
But, how?
From platforms like Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, etc, I probably use YouTube the most, followed by Strava. And yes, I do have an active Twitter account, but there is not much to look at — although, I just posted a new tweet about my take on the Disney+ app.
Now Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, these are all well designed and developed platforms. So how is it, that youngster TikTok propelled past these giants like they were nothing but small asteroids in a field of heavy gravity? 🪨
Rise to the top
TikTok has quickly risen to become one of the most popular social media platforms. Let’s have a quick look on how this app has gone from a relatively unknown entity to a global phenomenon!
TikTok’s popularity was driven by its simplicity and ease of use. Unlike other social media apps, it was designed to be incredibly intuitive, enabling users to easily create and share content.
As the app’s popularity grew, so too did its features. TikTok introduced its own music library, which allowed users to add music to their videos. This helped to further increase the app’s engagement, as users were now able to create more creative content.
In 2019, TikTok began to roll out a range of new features, such as the ability to post longer videos and collaborate with other users.
In conclusion, TikTok has stormed the social market to become one of the most popular social media apps in the world, with its simplicity and ease of use being fundamental for its success.
Now, you’re probably thinking, why should we even consider taking TikTok’s design and applying it to Strava?
And you’re right. We’re talking about two very different kind of platforms, with very different functions and purposes. Practically the only thing they have in common, is a feed with content from its users.
Why go on, right? 🤔
Well, TikTok’s design is one created with good reason. And I’m a curious man. So, what if, hypothetically, we could use TikTok’s intuitive design and Strava’s solid UX, and tweak the latter into an even better product?
Understanding TikTok’s design
Now that we sorted out where TikTok came from, it’s time to quickly jump into the apps’ design basics and why it’s so perfectly easy to use.
- 👋 Building on the before mentioned simplicity, swipe interactions are the foundation of the app.
- 📱 TikTok content uses your entire screen, with all features within a thumb’s reach, making visibility and usability great.
- 📋 Stats like views, likes and comments are used to quickly inform users and enable them to form an opinion in a matter of seconds. These opinions are biased, though, as they’re based on numbers (social proof) instead of the actual quality of the content.
Overall strenghts
✅ It’s visually fun and enticing
✅ It shows users one item at a time
✅ It’s tech is housing a formidable algorithm that enables ‘For you’
✅ That same algorithm actually supports the design, as Maximillian Piras thoughtfully explains in his ‘Designing algorithm-friendly interfaces’.
What if Strava looked like TikTok?
Well, what if it did? What if we were to combine Strava’s great UX with TikTok’s best feature ‘For You’ in a best-of-both-worlds design.
Using everything we’ve learned from breaking down Strava’s feed and looking at TikTok’s design, we can now put things together and use it as the foundation for something new. Here it is!
Strava Highlights
Meet Strava’s new feature: Highlights. Enabling athletes to upload ‘snapshots’ of their workouts. Hiking a great piece of earth? Found an extraordinary view? Show your followers what you’re looking at by taking a photo or shooting a video and uploading it to Strava feeds as a mid-workout Highlight.
A new feed
When athletes upload a new Highlight, users will be notified like business as usual: notifications just like any other Strava activity. But, users who are actually using the app when a new Highlight is uploaded, will be shown a new homepage notification. Additionally, completed activities will show followers if any Highlights have been added to the athletes’ workout.
🎯 Purpose: helps showcasing the athlete’s latest adventure, where they’ve been, and what they’ve seen along the way, giving the user an idea of what’s out there to discover.
A new Highlight
Tapping the above mentioned features will take users to the brand new Strava Highlights. These highlights, representing a moment of relevance during workouts, are snapshots of what athletes are experiencing, combined with their performance up until that moment.
Followers will be able to like, comment or share like they’re used to, giving the athlete all credits they deserve and motivating them on the go.
🎯 Purpose: giving athletes the appreciation they deserve, motivating them to keep at it and enabling them to show off remarkable experiences.
Strava Highlights
Based on TikTok’s core feature, Strava Highlights takes the best of both worlds and introduces a new way for users to interact with Strava’s well know tracking app, swiping through Highlights with ease.
My thoughts
At first, this study looked like what was going to be a weird attempt to redesign Strava based on TikTok. I wasn’t taking it seriously, not for one bit. But it became a serious study when I discovered that TikTok’s ‘For You’ design could actually be used for a relevant new feature within Strava’s app. One that could embrace the app’s great UX and UI, and add to it, not alter it in any way. And I think that’s what I’ve done.
Strava Highlight could be a wonderful addition to the app, enabling and motivating athletes to show just that bit more. To engage just that bit more. Letting followers get in on the action, making them feel like they’re there with you. That renewed interaction could brighten up Strava’s feed, grow user interaction and add to an already growing amount of users.
What’s next?
One thing is for sure, there’s more to come from this Strava journey I’ve embarked on. Numerous ideas came to mind during this study, including a feature that would allow users to start activities simultaneously and compete in a ‘live’ kind of fashion. Something that would give athletes live updates while, for example, they’re going for a competitive run.
Thanks for reading
If you’ve come this far, and read or scanned the whole post, I’m so very grateful! Thank you for giving me your precious time 🙏.
Any questions about this post or just want to say hi? Have some ideas of your own? Leave a comment and we’ll chat! 📣
Want to learn more about Strava? Check out their very own Medium profile.
Talk soon! 👋
