UX Research: The world’s largest fitness & nutrition community
This is a research assignment we did as a team for 10kdesigners in a duration of 10 days and the case study is my personal documentation for the same.
📋 Task
Our task was to prepare a research report on an Internet community to understand how people spend time in these communities. The purpose is to develop an understanding of their behavior, usage patterns and gather findings that can be distilled into insights.
🤔 What is an online community?
An online community or internet community is a group of people with a shared interest or purpose who use the internet to communicate with each other. Online communities have their own set of guidelines and needs, like online community engagement, moderation, and management.
Throughout the pandemic, digital connectivity has played an increasingly important role in how we stay connected. As a result, online communities became very popular in the last year, and continue to grow significantly in number today.
For the purpose of choosing a niche for our assignment, we bounced around different ideas for communities ranging from the BTS community on Weverse, Instagram Thrift stores, Anime discussion forums, and discord servers, we eventually settled on the fitness niche when we found Fittr.
🤔 What is Fittr?
The Fittr community started off in 2015 as a WhatsApp group by founder, Jitendra Chouksey to help people with fitness and nutrition advice for free. This further evolved into a Facebook group. After he realised the potential there was in training people to teach others about fitness, ‘Squats Fitness Private Limited’ was established in 2016 with its ‘Squats’ website. Today we know the site as Fittr.
- Today, Fittr is an online community for fitness enthusiasts to learn, share their transformation journey.
- Fittr is a free-to-use app.
- The platform provides various tools required for workouts and tracking progress.
- Users can enroll with a certified in-house coach and get the required guidance for their fitness journey.
- The community is very active including the coaches and regular users.
“Fitness is a multifaceted/multidimensional problem, and the key to solving it is to understand it and ask the right questions. Fittr was in the right place at the right time” -Jitendra Chouksey,
🧐 Why Fittr?
While discussing on what community we would research on, we stumbled upon Fittr and found it to be very unique compared to all the other fitness communities we had seen.
Here are the few reasons why we chose Fittr as a community to go with-
- We noticed that most users were very active and some share amazing stories of their fitness journey.
- The community had a plethora of tools and features like calculators and planners for people to track their progress.
- The user base of Fittr is massive and there are new users joining every day. There are people from all over the world using Fittr. They also have a large following on other social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
📝 Research Process
- We researched online about the Fittr community and downloaded the Fittr app.
- We conducted surveys and interviews with the Fittr community members through the Facebook, Instagram and the app.
- Then we drew quantitative and qualitative insights.
- Based on the insights, we created user personas and user journey maps.
- Finally, after some brainstorming, we identified problems and proposed possible solutions for them.
🎯 Goals
- To try and understand Fittr’s online fitness community, web, and mobile platforms.
- Understand how existing users are navigating through the Fittr web and mobile platforms and in what ways each user may utilize it.
- Explore why certain fitness enthusiasts may not be a part of such communities.
- How new users might navigate through the Fittr platforms.
💭 Hypothesis and Assumptions
Based on our initial exploration of the Fittr community and web/mobile applications, we had a few assumptions about the user behaviors. We wanted to validate these assumptions through our research in a manner that would not be leading.
- Fitness enthusiasts are aware of and actively pursuing such online fitness communities.
- The Fittr app is more widely used than the web platform.
- The Fittr community primarily consists of members workout at home.
- Users easily trust the coaches on Fittr and feel their instructions are reliable.
- A large majority of Fittr users are NOT enrolled to train with a Fittr coach.
- Fittr coaches are very active on the app on a daily basis.
- Fittr has no active complaint forum and no credibility checks on the content posted on the platform.
- Most Fittr users do not redeem workshops, courses, webinars, etc. offered in the fit shop via fitcoins.
- Most Fittr users find the tools offered confusing to use.
- Members are not actively connecting with each other via the web chat option on the platform.
- Webchat is not the main platform of communication between coaches and their trainees.
👨💻 Secondary Research
As part of our research process, we conducted secondary research about various online fitness communities, the impact Covid has had on online fitness and the Fittr community itself. We gathered our information for our secondary research from various articles, videos and reviews.
Online Fitness and Covid-19
As of 2021, with coronavirus still at large, the pandemic has had a lasting impact on various industries including that of fitness. Despite the decline in cases and the reopening of fitness centres, online fitness still remains relevant.
With the rise in training at home during what had been an increasingly overwhelming time, the huge power in online communities had been uncovered. They can create a sense of belonging, commitment, support, and teamwork. In addition to being a safe space for many members, such communities allow for sharing of various resources to do with fitness and nutrition available online.
From fitness influencers providing workout content on YouTube, Instagram, and mobile apps of their own, to gyms that are following suit to transition with online coaching, there has been an increasing number of fitness communities growing online. As a result, the virtual fitness industry has witnessed a sharp boom.
The online shift is contributing to what experts have said will be a permanent change to how the $32 billion industry works. While 75% of consumers surveyed said they will eventually return to pre-pandemic routines and the actual gym, many indicated they will retain a virtual component — a phenomenon with broad implications for the sector. -Livemint.com
As per the research done by ClubIntel, 72% of fitness clubs now offer on-demand and live stream group workouts which is a 25% increase from 2019
Virtual fitness has opened the possibility of planning training programs, monitoring, and inspiring users to stay fit at lower costs. The fitness industry is shifting towards AR-based gamified fitness apps with the sole purpose of exploring newer ways of engaging with people, apart from making fitness more accessible to perhaps even those for whom it is not a priority
🚶🏽Initial Exploration
We downloaded the Fittr app and tried to understand how the app works, its features, how the app is different from the website and many more!
🌐 Fittr’s Online Presence
- 3500+ followers
- Most of the twitter posts are about transformations, memes and challenges.
- There’s rarely any interactions from the users among these twitter posts 😖
❤️Instagram
- 306k followers
- The fittr team post the same thing as they do on twitter. However, they post stories which explains fitness concepts easily.
- There’s more interactions from users compared to twitter.
- They regularly put stories on instagram which are about upcoming live streams in the fittr app, upcoming sessions on fittr, interesting fitness articles, client transformations and pictures of gym sessions of the trainer and the client.
- 28k+ followers
- The fittr team on linkedin posts about hiring coaches, Important fitness articles and videos about client transformations.
- 620k+ followers
- The Fittr team post memes, upcoming challenges, fitness concepts, coach promotion updates and client transformation pictures.
🎥 Youtube
- 185k subscribers
- The videos are of amazing quality and there’s a playlist for transformations, recipes, gym workouts, home workouts, yoga and so much more!
🏠 Clubhouse
- In Clubhouse, The top fitness experts conducts Q&A sessions and talk about various topics related to fitness.
⚖️ Competitive Analysis
After learning about the boom in online fitness during the pandemic, we wanted to observe how other fitness communities and platforms had grown to accommodate the influx of users from around the world.
As part of the competitive analysis, we checked out well-known fitness websites and mobile applications, which did have a community section.
Different user groups have different goals and interests within a community. The point of the competitive analysis was to understand what are some of the features that are most often provided by these platforms.
🛒 Playstore/App store reviews for Fittr app.
Positive reviews:
- The users find the discussions helpful.
- They find the pictures and videos posted by other users to be motivating.
- The coaches are all well trained and certified.
Negative reviews:
- Users feel hesitant to share their phone number for verification prior to exploring the app.
- Tools feel confusing to use, some find that they may be inaccurate.
- Bad experiences with some coaches, users felt that they wasted their money.
- The diet tool doesn’t have a variety of food options.
- Occasional glitches while trying to upload images, videos, etc.
🕵🏻 Primary Research
- Firstly, we conducted a user survey through google forms for quantitative insights
- Then we conducted user interviews for qualitative insights.
📊 User Survey
🔬User Interview
User Group 1: Existing Fittr Users
For this group, we connected with users in the Fittr community and started interacting with them. We reached out to nearly 60 people and managed to interview 5 of them and have received survey responses from 11 users.
When reaching out to the users we tried to be as candid as possible and make them comfortable.
We interviewed a few users and sent out surveys to a few others and we were able to get a better understanding of the users of the platform.
Qualitative Insights
- The users are more comfortable using the mobile app but occasionally do use the web platform to access the plans provided by the coaches.
- Most of the users use the app on a daily basis. By doing so they’re able to see other people’s progress as well and that keeps them motivated.
- The users find the challenges to be motivating and feel that a cash prize incentivises more participation.
- The users of the app and web platform have no serious problems with the app and find it easy to navigate through the whole app.
- Both, the members and coaches are very active on the platform. They find that the community is very welcoming and motivating.
- The massive user base manages to create a sense of trust with the members and the coaches on the platform.
- While most of the users don’t seem to have problems navigating through the app and use its features, a few users do find the tools hard to understand in terms of what they do and how they work.
User Group 2: New Fittr Users
We interviewed a few of our personal connections who are all fitness enthusiasts. We were able to have them try and use the app and understand if it is suitable for new users when they sign up.
Qualitative Insights:
- Most of them are aware of online communities and are a part of some, but do not usually actively interact on the platform rather, they use it to consume knowledge on the topics of their interest.
- Some of them prefer to go to the gym to workout because of the availability of necessary equipment and the environment helps them stay motivated.
- Most people do not enroll themselves with a coach/personal trainer because they find it expensive or that they can get whatever information they need online.
- Some people prefer to workout alone and not socialise with other members at the gym as they treat it like a meditative experience for self-improvement. However, some people do prefer to workout out with others and talk about nutrition and fitness.
- Certain aspects of the app felt familiar to them due their usage of other social media platforms
- The hurdle came when they were asked to try to use the tools of the app. For those that had been involved in fitness for a while, they felt that these tools may be daunting to use for beginners.
For those that were new to fitness, the above was true. - Most of them felt the challenges incentivised progress and hence might motivate people to workout and stay accountable. However, concerns were raised about the moderation of the challenges in terms of diet and exercise as people tend to indulge in harmful practices to enhance their transformation.
- While they appreciated the aspect of community support, they still felt the tools could be improved for ease of use.
🎭 User Persona
Based on the information we gathered, we were able to form categories of people in the form of user personas. This gives us an extensive understanding of the people we are focusing on.
User Group 1 — Existing Fittr Users
User Group 2 — New Fittr Users
📈User Journey Map
😡 Pain points
- Providing phone number to sign up
- Hard to filter relevant questions on the homepage.
- Differing advice in the comments section.
- Can’t easily search for your friends on the platform
- No further information on what all the tools are and what they do.
- User has trouble selecting their own food items and deleting added items in the diet tool.
- Hard to navigate between macro and diet tool.
- Calorie calculator seems grossly inaccurate for certain activities.
- Overall, moderation of challenges seem to be a concern for fitness enthusiasts.
☑️ Hypothesis Validation:
🔍 Observations and Opportunities
Based on our insights from our secondary research, observing the journeys of both user personas, and our derived pain points we laid out some of our observations and opportunities for improvement within the Fittr community and platform.
Building trust in the community
In the past, the fitness industry has had a reputation for preying on the insecurities of the general public. While enhancing your appearance can be a bonus to regular exercise and a healthy relationship with food, enhancing your lifestyle to promote better living habits is the ultimate goal.
From our own exploration and from the experiences of existing members, we have learned that Fittr is trying to cultivate a supportive environment for fitness enthusiasts. They have based their culture around the idea that anyone can start anywhere.
Member Interaction
When members were asked what type of interactions they had with other community members, they said:
- They engaged with questions posted by others in discussions page.
- They engaged with progress pictures and transformation videos posted by others.
- If they were knowledgeable on a subject, would respond to queries.
- They reached out via chat to ask coaches questions or answer questions from community members.
As a result of a lot of beginners joining the community, there is a tendency of questions being very repetitive on the discussion forum which further requires coaches and other community members to post repetitive comments.
💡 How might we allow members to find the answers to their questions without spamming the discussion page with repetitive questions & comments for other members?
💡 Beyond general doubts posted in the discussions page or answering queries via chat, in what other capacities can community interaction be encouraged?
Discovery of community members and their content
In order to encourage Fittr members to discover and follow more community members, Fittr has a discover section for users to browse through a variety of posts from other members. However, they’re unable to find tags for their specific interests on the page.
How can we allow Fittr users to pinpoint what type of fitness and nutrition content they want to see, such that it is relevant to their interests
In addition to this, from our findings, we discovered that searching for accounts on Fittr seems to be a pain point for some users as they are unable to find their friends or specific accounts they’re looking for.
💡 How might we improve the search experience for users so they can easily connect with other members they’re looking for?
Contests and Challenges
Creating leaderboards, challenges, and contests helps to raise the level of competition within online communities and hence, engagement. For members who thrive off of competition, the challenge of getting to the top of the leaderboard is enough to get them moving.
Fittr has various workout-based challenges that community members participate in. One of the largest challenges Fittr hosts is known as the ‘12- Week Transformation Challenge’.
The challenge requires registered users to upload weekly progress videos and pictures for a duration of 12 weeks. After which, the candidate with the best transformation wins a cash prize of about 3 lakhs. The entries to these challenges can only be accessed by scrolling to the challenges tab on the home page.
💡 How might we increase the visibility of such ongoing challenges and registered participants in the community to encourage further participation?
While some members found that these challenges were very motivating and the incentive was to get people moving, others were concerned about the moderation of such challenges to prevent people from indulging in harmful practices and diets to enhance their physique.
💡 How can these challenges be moderated such that participants abstain from harmful practices to enhance their physique?
Fittr Leaderboard
Fittr’s leaderboard ranks members on the basis of how many fitcoins they earn.
Members can earn fitcoins by:
- posting reviews
- posting recipes
- participating in challenges.
However, we found that while most members are aware of fitcoins, they aren’t very interested in earning them or using them to redeem workshops, webinars, etc. As a result, people are not very invested in the leaderboard either.
💡 How to attract more interest to the Fittr leaderboard such that it motivates members to engage in community activities?
Tools
While consistent calorie counting is a widely debated issue in the fitness industry due to its impact on mental health and people’s relationship with food, it is a method used to track consumption for weight loss or muscle gain.
Fittr users are given a wide range of calculators to track their body metrics and calorie consumption. However, from our findings, those new to fitness require more context about the terminologies surrounding these tools and how they work.
Educating the user on such topics will allow them to make more empowered choices on how and to what extent they can track activity, body metrics and calorie consumption without derailing their mental health.
💡 How can we educate users on complex, scientific terms involved in tracking such that they can make educated decisions when using tools?
💡Proposed Solutions
Based on some of our observations and the opportunities we identified for improvement, we have some suggestions on how to solve some of our user pain points.
Providing phone numbers:
- While there is an option for users to browse the platform without OTP verification, they still are required to enter phone numbers prior to this.
- During sign-up, providing some positive reinforcement can assure the users that their information is only being used for verification and no spam will be sent.
- Allowing the users to browse limited features of the app before providing their phone number can allow them to make an experience based decision to sign up.
Filtering content based on user interest
- Providing FAQ guide for beginners with certain frequently asked questions to help them navigate the early stages of their fitness suggestions
- While the user can filter based on the type of post made (discussion, updates, transformation etc.), allowing the user to filter based on certain topics relevant to them can help skip through various repeated questions.
- The filtering can be done on the basis of keyword suggestions.
Promoting further interaction:
- Creating sub-communities for specific interest groups like Yoga, Dance Fitness, Calisthenics, Mental Wellness, etc., might encourage people to interact with others of similar interests.
- As of their most recent update, Fittr has allowed users to join certain topics of interest which will add you to chat groups with people under those topics.
- This addition may increase community engagement over chat, while people connect with others in their interest group.
Follow others with similar interests
- Based on a user’s selected interests during onboarding, make follow recommendations for accounts with similar interests.
- As of their newest update, we noticed Fittr recommends to users certain member profiles to follow.
Improved search experience
- Enhancing the search tool by making it so that when searching for users, the people you follow are shown higher in preference as compared to the rest of the members in the community.
- People with common interests can also be shown as suggestions during search.
Gamification of Challenges
- Gamifying the transformation challenges such that registered participants are given badges of weekly achievements, level-ups, points, etc. to display on their profile would attract more visibility to the existence and interest in such activities. This could also help bring more attention to the Fittr leaderboard to increase community engagement.
Educating users on tools and terminologies
- When the users are accessing the tools, add an information icon that when pressed, provides information describing the tool, its use, what each metric means, and how to use it.
- Adding this option can allow users to check out this information whenever they want to access it.
Ease in calorie tracking
- Have the option to set and track macros, consumed calories in Diet tool and calorie’s burned within one tool. This would prevent users from having to navigate between these different tools and easily see all information regarding their calorie tracking on their screen.
- Provide a larger range of food items to track, not limited to the recipes on the app.
- Remove irrelevant, mundane activities as part of calorie tracker.
📖 Learnings and Takeaways
- Communication skills: I was always a bit hesitant to reach out to people. It was quite intimidating initially as I was conducting interviews for the first time. I don’t know how but I actually started to enjoy the whole process of conducting interviews. Now I want to host my own podcast in the future.
- Learned the importance of taking early feedback.
- I had an amazing time working with my creative teammates Jonty Chaki, Richa Banka and Sharanya Murali. There were instances when one of us felt stuck or deviated from our path during the research but I am glad we had each other’s back when it mattered.
- 🙏Thank you for reading till the end. Means a lot to me.
- I would also like to thank Sahil Pandita, Swapnil Borkar and Vishal S Krishna for their guidance and valuable feedback.
- 👨💻And do reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter for any feedback, discussions, or collaborations, I’d be more than happy to have a chat with you!
