[UX Case] Freeletics’ user experience tweaks
Practising UXR for the first time with my favourite app
Freeletics is a training app that allows you to work out with your own body weight via High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) sessions.
There’s plenty of people who’ve had their lives changed (myself included) thanks to the app’s coaching ability to deliver exercises especially picked for your body capabilities and needs. It’s like having a mobile personal trainer!
Edit: I was a beginner when I worked on this so the article below may be seriously faulty. This UX case is solely kept for personal history, so please, tread carefully :)
Research
This project was born out of my own adversities using the app, so I conducted user research that quickly revealed that several other users faced the same problems as I did as well as many others I never thought of.
People both from the US and Brazil were inquired via Qualitative Research, regardless of age, gender, time of use, etc (although most were quite active).
My questioning revolved around: “what bothers you about Freeletics and what would you say is missing / should be changed?” People from all demographics had invaluable feedback that resulted in this captivating challenge below. :)
The Challenge
To fix several UX problems that hinder training sessions (which can eventually make you quit) and also add features to improve general user satisfaction.
The main goal is to improve the training coach: the premium feature that crafts workout sessions for its Free Athletes (as Freeletics calls its users). Although it provides superb training sessions, it fails to account for users’ physical incapabilities and motivate the user to keep training.
Example: some users simply can’t perform some exercises since it requires exceptional body control / strength but Freeletics won’t provide you with an alternative — so not only your workout session is now faulty, a sense of failure is all over you now… You know how it ends for gym beginners, right?
They are just looking for an excuse to quit so we must prevent that! :)
REWORK TIME: 2.5 WEEKS
The Persona
The research revealed that the average Free Athlete is not a traditional fitness aficionado so everything can be a good excuse to skip a workout, be it arriving home a little late, having trouble with the UI or even taking a while finding the app’s icon.
The WHOLE UX has to be smooth and seamless to ensure greater app usage and keep people loyal to their fitness goals.
Exercise Sessions
1 — Accept your failures, loser!
Have you ever performed a Pike (↑)? It’s like winning the lotto for beginners! (I never got it right.) Some exercises are impossible because..:
- Your muscles are not strong enough yet;
- You lack the flexibility / muscle conditioning;
- You have some permanent debilitating condition (like bad knees).
And the app gives you now alternatives at the moment.** That means you may lose 25%+ of your workout and — worst of all — feel like a failure and discouraged to continue for the day or even for good, which is an unacceptable situation!
** The app does give alternatives to some exercises but those are so hidden many users don’t even know where they are (so they simply skip the exercise).
REWORKED DESIGN
The Replace icon provides a list of exercises that are compatible with the one you are performing, all of them followed by equivalence gradients.
Since we need athletes to push themselves to the limit every day, a warning box shows up every time a user picks an exercise that is less than 70% compatible, advising him to aim higher or else his/her reps will be increased to balance the change.
[1] The button is also available on the session overview page before you start working out so you wouldn’t need to pause your HIIT* sessions in case you spot one of these hellish exercises. (* This is important because HIIT is composed of short intervals of bursting activity, meaning you don’t want to waste precious time replacing an exercise or worse: insisting on something that would exhaust your muscles and prevent you from continue training.)
[2] The buttons one and two were switched so we have the undesired option second (Longer training [i.e. replace an exercise]) as opposed to Freeletics’ original design that keeps it at the top.
[3] It’s important to highlight that users can’t ban an exercise forever by simply replacing it every single day/week. The algorithm will be evaluating the user’s overall performance as it always does and will eventually force the user to face that exercise he couldn’t get right. Here’s how:
The app would evaluate how well you are performing other exercises and eventually assume that your muscles may handle it at this time. Now you’d be forced to perform it but the app would ask— during rest phase 1 — if you were able to perform it and how many reps you’ve got right.
If you are successful, the exercise remains; if not, the HIIT sessions immediately replaces it with whatever you have pick(ed). The algorithm would obviously take your [un]successful reps into account so as to guide your next training sessions.
2 — Successful Failure & UX Writing
Several users reported finishing their workouts with 83% Completion (IMG1) although they were sure they had everything done. A bug..?
No! I realised Freeletics marks both to-be-done exercises and completed ones with blue circles as well as attributing a grey background to both (IMG2) — ignoring that grey is known worldwide as a token of unfinished stuff, meaning the number alone is not enough to signal you have more to do.
Image 1 is especially more misleading because “INTERVAL” tricks some people into thinking they should rest although it’s an exercise name (the most important one!) so you can only imagine how many workouts were compromised by such copywriting mistake.
Image 2, on the other hand, gets you wondering if you have to go for Athena or 25 Squats. (You’d probably pick the right one because you just have warmed up, but it gets blurry when that’s the 3rd or 4th exercise [especially after INTERVAL sessions that often last 20 minutes+ and you do so many stuff that a “3” or “4” no longer makes sense].)
So how does it end? Some people realise there’s a UI mistake and go back; some believe the only thing missing is to tap on “Finish day” whereas others simply do not notice and go ahead with their days.
REWORKED DESIGN
[1] “INTERVAL” sessions are now called “HIIT WORKOUT” to avoid mistakes.
[2] All uncompleted exercises have grey background whereas completed ones have white, no matter what exercise order you are following.
[3] Uncompleted icons are marked orange instead of the ubiquitous blue. The incomplete circle was turned into a triangle (known as a warning shape) which is also good to aid colour-blind users.
[4] “Finish Day” was replaced by a message that is clearer in its intention, i.e. “keep fighting (because there’s stuff missing)” — not to mention it’s now has a much needed motivating tone.
[5] The “C” button (Coach) is now bigger to make it more imposing and also foist interest upon free users.
3 — Black screen of death
INTERVAL (HIIT) sessions are made of 3–4 sequential exercises that should be taken one after the other so you take your workout to the limits.
If it wasn’t for a terrible black screen, of course…
Freeletics downloads a preview image and video when you start working out and both are invaluable resources for any free athlete that has not already memorised their names and mastered technique — thus they can’t even train if that isn’t readily available for them.
You should also remember that seconds are precious for HIIT sessions so none should be lost although this is a common problem among 3G users and people in developing nations.
REWORKED DESIGN
The preview of exercise 2 is now downloaded right after you start exercise 1. This means every user, regardless of how good his/her internet is, will have a smooth transition to the next exercise as soon as s/he is finished.
(You may have noticed I’ve added arrows to the rework; that will be explained in section 5.)
4— Stubborn Coach
A MOBILE exercise app should always account for mobility but that’s not the case with Freeletics’ workout schedule.
Freeletics prompts you to plan your next week’s schedule every time you finish a workout week by asking if you have any sore muscles and which equipments you have available (such as dip bars), BUT WHAT IF you realise you’ll have to go on an emergency trip after 1 or 2 days?
Take your bars to the plane because Freeletics will force you to skip several exercises or even worse: give up your whole journey and go back to week 1! :(
That’s obviously disappointing so we need the app to re-plan the week ahead, replacing exercises you won’t be able to perform. In sum, “FREE Athletes” should be free to follow their routines — and that includes being free of the pieces of equipment they might have at home. (This would also fix mistaps and any other mistakes users may commit.)
[1] You can see I have decided to go 5 days per week with a box and a wall to train, but why is the box under it (Limitations) empty if I have also checked to have a problem with my lower legs?!
Did the app really consider my claim? Is that a bug? I have no idea but I may be in for 5 days of frustration now.
[2] It’s also disheartening that Freeletics won’t account for extremely common problems such as bad knees, forcing you to say you have a sore upper / lower leg and consequently preventing you from performing most leg & butt exercises that you can perform without a problem.
Bad knees mean you cannot Squat, for instance, but it definitely doesn’t mean you can’t do an infinite amount of lower body exercises out there.
Some users complained week planning lacks diversity such as allowing for dumbbells — one of the most popular training gears, often bought by people who want to work out by themselves. (E.g., Freeletics users? :P)
Here’s the mechanics I suggest:
- The app asks if your dumbbells have fixed or adjustable weight so training sessions may include weight variation.
- It prompts you to perform some reps to evaluate your strength.
- The algorithm plans your week according to it.
This would prevent a strong guy from being prompted to do 5 Curls with 4kg or a weak one from doing 10 reps with 10kg.
It’s also important to highlight that working out is not about heavy weights but technique, so it’s completely possible to have great results with just a few plates at home— which is not uncommon among people who always want to exercise but never hit the gym.
Put shortly, adding this feature definitely does not mean you’d have to build your own gym to be able to unleash your potential.
5—Groundhog Day
You are in an excruciating hurry performing your HIIT, sweating to death with trembling fingers but it’s time to tap to pass an exercise. You tap it and somehow it shows an exercise you’ve finished a few secs ago… What?!
Precision and attention are compromised during HIIT and tapping with your trembling fingers may get you accidentally making a quick, imperceptible swipe to the left, taking you to the previous screen.
Some users immediately notice the mistake*** whereas others will hurry to perform whatever is being shown. Both situations are bad because they may hinder your exercise results, demotivate you, lead to overtraining and worse of all: getting (micro) injuries because of that.
REWORKED DESIGN
[1] A beeping sound is emitted when moving to the previous screen if you’ve spent 4+ seconds in another exercise (so the app knows that you were really working out instead of just browsing). The sound is crucial since you always tap quickly and leave the phone asap to start the next exercise, so we need to make sure users won’t relying on vision alone.
Along with it, there’s a visual warning (!) telling you to tap anywhere to move to the right exercise (i.e., skipping the one you’ve already performed).
Everything above lasts 3 seconds.
[2] Directional arrows were added to all exercise screens so the user knows he/she can switch to different exercises depending on where they tap.
*** It should also be noted that tapping is a faulty method because you are prompted to do it endless times every workout session and this is when you are trembling, struggling to change your body position, so getting your sweat finger to the screen often feels like an extra exercise. (It’s like playing twister and receiving new instructions with weak muscles and sweat everywhere — a horrible situation!)
I’d strongly advocate for a voice command exclusive to the platform (such as “next-ex”) so you can pass exercises more smoothly. It would be awesome to switch from jumping jacks to pushups (i.e., from jumping to almost laying down) regardless if your phone is docked far from you or within finger reach.
[3] You’re trembling, begging for death and after a colossal effort to pass the exercise, you accidentally double-tap and skip an exercise, going straight to the Rest screen... And Freeletics won’t let you move back! =(
Now you either accept your mistake, skip the exercise (assuming you’ve even noticed) and compromise your training session, or you risk overtraining and injuring yourself since resting is totally vital in HIIT training… Sucks, right?
We can fix that by adding a one-sec-delay-tap to all screens (except for the rest screen, which shouldn’t be mindlessly skipped) so misstaps don’t risk any part of your training section.
6—Dull Newsfeed
Several users complained Freeletics’ feed is useless and, to some like me, rather discouraging because it keeps reminding me of my failures. (It shows your annotations, like a diary.)
The problem is that your feed will be all about yourself unless you are following some friends and the bad news is that several people have no friends using the app. Regarding your posts, it’s not like the average network where you can post pictures or random phrases but only exercise feedback, making the feed dull and of no use to many, many users. (Freeletics itself will post some stuff but it’s rather technical…)
REWORKED DESIGN
[1] As expected, some users said they wished to have a blog-app integration so we can get up-to-date information and tips straight from Freeletics. This is great since it can also be used to report app updates, warnings, praise, inspiration and much more stuff that would make the feed more engaging.
[2] I also added a paper plane button that can be used to share the post with friends within the app or even out of it, on your social networks, as a link to their blog. As you can see in Marco Stein’s post, the plane is light grey because he chose not to make his authorial posts public (pics, for instance).
[3] EVERY time you finish an exercise you generate a post, meaning you end up creating some 5 posts within a minutes and your feed will get as useless as the one shown in the first image. I fixed that by simply not showing my own posts in the feed since I can easly find those in my profile screen.
[4] Did you notice the “pro free athlete” post? There we go! ↓
[5] Obviously, we need an algorithm (like Insta’s) to prevent obscene imagery from overtaking the Freeletics’ feed.
7 —Stratified for Good
Leaderboards are thought to lift you up but are often excellent demotivating tools when not carefully projected — and that may be the case here since it reminds you that you are the underdog; the below-the-average, out of shape new guy. (Exactly like when you join a gym for the first time!)
Freeletics’ board is made of people you’ve followed in the app, the first being Freeletics itself who is 800 THOUSAND points ahead of you. But who cares about that? I can get over the app’s exceptional performance…
But not over my friends’ though.
There are endless users way ahead of you and they keep clawing up ahead since they won’t stop training just because you’ve arrived. In short, Ezequiel and Silvestre (above) have little chance of ever climbing and may even notice sharp declines if they are not moving in lockstep with their buddies.
The app wants you to be a winner but the leaderboard is only putting additional pressure on your shoulders, so I propose an additional tier-layered leaderboard where you are ranked against every other Freeletics user.
[1] Since Freeletics has workouts namesake of Greek gods, the first tier you get in is called “The Colosseum” and the top one is called the “Pantheon” (where the gods live). Your info is especially highlighted with colours and varied forms (to aid the colour-blind), followed by coloured notifications.
[2] Leaderboards can make things pretty competitive so there would be special challenges to aid you to climb ahead or simply not losing your spot, for instance: “would you like to make your workout 10% more intense to maintain your spot for the day?”; “5-minute-challenge to reach the next tier!”
[3] Some people do not like this intense competition so there’s the fist bump icon where you will find a leaderboard of your connections (original). Be you a soft or hardcore user, you’ll find the challenge that fits you best.
8—Last(s) but definitely not least.
Freeletics’ logo is pretty original but not recognisable enough to aid you easily spot it. I’ve developed an alternative version where there’s an “F” (a shape we all know) so, instead of looking for a distorted hexagon, you’ll be seeking a familiar shape when you want to workout.
I’d even make it the official logo because 1) you can do some nice arts with the cut “F” and 2) it seems less alien than the original, building more empathy.
One of my grievances is that the coach seldom talks to you and the notification screen is rather useless; my next post update will bring some changes to that.
I believe the app should have an alarm to get your working out; that it should send you motivating messages and most important: congratulate you for every achievement you have.
The coach is so discrete that you are often oblivious of when it’s talking. Its most relevant words are delivered via email (and maaany people rarely check everything they receive) so why isn’t that in the Freeletics’ feed and also informed in our notification screens? That’s wasted potential!
Several users complained there’s poor integration regarding running sessions and that those can’t even be tracked with most smartwatches. Putting it shortly, running is not feeling like part of the game and that’s disappointing lots of users out there.
As seen in rework 3 (black screen) exercises are immediately changed when you tap the screen and that’s great — but not when it’s timed.
Warmup / cooldown have a “delayless” timer that will make you hurry to start the next one and that’s pretty annoying and potentially harming if your hurry makes you perform the exercise poorly. You lose ~3 secs changing positions and that also feels like cheating, so I would add a 2 secs delay between timers.
How about you follow me here or connect with me on LinkedIn so we can take this conversation forward? I’ll be happy to provide you with any assistance you might need! : )
