Fitbit: the UX behind the habit of exercise — a UX case study

There are generally three types of people in the world when it comes to exercising:

1. the fitness freaks who exercise all day err’ day;
2. the couch potatoes whose walking from the front door to their car would be the extent of their exercise for the day; and
3. the people in between who want to be fit and healthy but need some motivation (aka a kick in the butt) to go to the gym.

I, along with most people I know, are the third type of person. We are called the general consumers of the multi-billion dollar worth of wearable fitness tracker market. Over the years, I have tried a few fitness trackers and my current obsession is Fitbit. It’s a great tracker and motivates me to be more active, but I have encountered a few problems while using their iOS app. So I decided to put my UX designer hat on and venture into the wild to see if anyone else shares my problems and if I could make any improvements to the app.

My Design Process

I decided to follow IDEO’s Human-Centered Design and Lean UX Design Thinking process to make sure that my design decisions were supported by user research and feedback.