WeClub

WHAT IS THE CONTEXT?

Many sports require more than two people to play games. Many of my friends who moved to a new city have been trying to find a local sports club to play the sports game, but didn’t know where or how to find the clubs. I could relate to them as I had tried to find a group of people to enjoy the same fitness activities.

Also, when I was starting to work out, it was difficult to make it a daily routine. I have found other people also feel the same because there’s nothing really pushing them to do so and no tools to help them to keep motivating them.

THE PROBLEM

1. Finding a Local Sports Club

People who want to play sports have to find players with the same interest in their area. If they don’t have a network to meet other players, this can be difficult to accomplish.

2. Making a good habit (Challenge)

People find it difficult to create good habits or daily routines. Committing to a challenge provides the boost to start making a change. Doing a challenge with other people is a great way to keep people motivated and people are more likely to stick to their commitment.

THE SOLUTION

• Location based local sports clubs/activities finder (wherever location user wants) - to connect with people who share your interests.

• Feature to create sports clubs/activities.

• Challenges related to health and exercise.

• Feature to create own challenge.

WeClub is a mobile application that helps people find local sports clubs to join or start their own club. It allows people to connect with others with the same interest. Another feature is Challenge to motivate people to make a good change in their daily routine. The app provides challenges that are not overwhelming, but something manageable so that people feel like trying and not get discouraged. Joining a challenge will help people to get started and keep motivated by doing it with a supportive community.

DESIGN APPROACH

SECONDARY RESEARCH

My original idea was to help people build a good routine/habit. To understand how to form a routine and the benefits of building a good routine, I did research through published reports and articles online.

KEY FINDINGS

Many people try to create a healthy habit or daily routine, but often fail. This suggests that creating a new habit or daily routine is difficult. Having people motivated to keep going with the challenge would be much helpful.

To make a daily routine:

1. Decide what needs to be in your routine

2. Set small goals.

3. Layout a plan.

4. Be consistent with time.

5. Make it fun!

PRIMARY RESEARCH

To better understand people’s recent behavior when trying to make a new habit/routine, I spoke with five individuals who were selected from a screener survey. Each interviewee participated in a 30 - 45 minute interview either in person or virtually over Zoom. They shared openly about their daily routines and experience with trying to build a good habit or daily routine.

USER INTERVIEW FINDINGS X 5 PEOPLE

Through the interviews, I learned not only what encourages or discourages people when trying to make a new habit/routine, but also discovered that four out of five interviewees recently tried to find an activity group related to sports/fitness activities that they were interested in.

Based on this new key finding, I decided to learn more about the experience of finding local sport clubs/fitness groups. I quickly moved on with the 2nd round of interviews with the same four people who tried to find sport clubs/fitness groups.

What people who play sports or enjoy fitness activities are looking for:

1. Finding the local sports clubs

People want easy ways to find local sports clubs and reach out.

2. Connecting with like-minded people

It is difficult to meet people who play the same sports or enjoy the same activities if people don’t have a network.

3. Motivation

People find it difficult to motivate themselves to start making a good habit and stay motivated.

4. A guidance for setting goals

People often don’t know how/what to start when building healthy habits/routines and need guidance for setting SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound objectives.

DEFINE

1. AFFINITY MAP

After gathering data from interviews, I visualized through affinity mapping to better understand the data and main pain points.

2. EMPATHY MAP

To gain a deeper insight into potential users and ensure empathizing with the user’s experiences, I created an empathy map. This helped me keep the users in the center of the design process in next steps.

USER INSIGHTS

Main pain points from my primary research:

1. People don’t know how to find local sports clubs/activity groups.

2. People struggle to keep motivated to make a good habit/daily routine.

3. People want to share their achievements and connect with the community of like-minded people.

THE PROBLEM RE-DEFINED

After gaining a solid sense of pain points and the wants, I decided to solve two problems:

1) Helping people to find local sports clubs/activity groups.

2) Helping people build good habits/routines.

OPPORTUNITY

1. How might we help people find local sports clubs/fitness groups?

2. How might we motivate people to create good habits or daily routines?

PERSONA

Keeping pain points and insights from interviews above in mind, I identified 2 types of users who could be our target users. While designing a solution, these 2 personas helped me keep the user’s needs in the center of the design process.

KEY FINDING

Desirable factors for joining sports clubs or challenges:

1. SPORTS CLUB

NEEDS:

• Find a local sports club/activity group.

• Create social bonds and companionship with club members.

• Connect with other players who can share their knowledge and experience.

• Have a long-term incentive to play sports.

GOALS:

• Play sports on a regular basis.

• Participate in the group events.

• Earn knowledge and tips.

2. MAKING HABITS

NEEDS:

• Motivate themselves to complete challenges and make a good habit/routine.

• Explore challenges that they are interested in.

GOALS:

• Feel small successes and keep going.

• Stay making good changes and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

IDEATE

MVP

I created a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to quickly validate a hypothesis about the solution.

SITE MAP

After identifying MVP, I created a sitemap. With a site map, I was able to envision the user flow easier to guide me in creating user flow.

USER FLOW - MOBILE APP

Considering all the ways users could navigate through an app, I created a user flow to identify the essential path.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

• Make the exploration of clubs and challenges simple and easy.

• Create a knit community for like-minded people.

• Bonding and participation.

• Create a sense of achievement.

LOW-FI SKETCHING

I began the design process by quickly sketching out ideas for the red routes and turning them into a digital clickable prototype using the Marvel POP app.

GUERILLA USABILITY TESTING

I recruited 4 participants for moderated guerilla usability testing to get quick feedback on designs. It helped me to learn what aspects of my design need to be adjusted before moving on to wireframing.

Key findings from guerilla usability testing:

1. Improve legibility

2. Add Home screen showing both sports club & challenge

3. Prioritize important contents show on top

4. Confusing icon: “Like” button

WIREFLOW

UI STYLE

Colors are carefully selected considering color theory and emotional connotation. For the primary color, I opted for pink-red color that offers a sense of energy, fun, friendliness and promotes motivation with a positive attitude. I specifically picked pink-red color because it gives a softer feel than red. Green is the secondary color which is associated with life and growth. Green is used in limited areas. To create a simple, clean UI design, I tried to minimize the number of colors with hues and used more achromatic colors.

For good legibility, font size is at least 15 and over. I chose Roboto for the clean, modern font look and legibility. For a very large header, I chose Work Sans to add a little playful element, but still has the clean and modern look.

PROTOTYPE

Prototype Version 1 with Main Screens:

USABILITY TESTING - 5 MODERATED TESTINGS

Key findings for the improvement:

1. Participants didn’t quickly decide what option to choose on the log-in page.

2. Challenge detail page lacked some information that participants wanted to know.

3. When creating a club, users wanted more settings.

4. Users use bookmark often, but it takes two (there was no direct bookmark navigation on every screen)

ITERATION

1. Improved onboarding process by updating the CTA buttons.

2. Added more information about challenges.

3. Added an image icon on creating a club page.

4. Made the club categories scroll horizontally for users to explore more categories.

2ND ROUND USABILITY TESTING

Through the 2nd round testing, I wanted to observe how users experienced the app with its iterations.

Iterations to consider:

1. Allow users to set up notifications to remind them to do the challenge or attend the club event.

2. Add the level of challenges showing how difficult the challenges are.

3. Add the recommended challenges for each user’s level.

FINAL PROTOTYPE

Clickable Prototype

MY NEXT STEP

My next step would be incorporating more gamification elements in rewarding to motivate users and visualize the progress. Creating some incentives for people who complete challenges would boost their motivation and give them more sense of achievement.

WHAT I LEARNED

I really enjoyed working on the capstone project “We Club” and seeing how this mobile service can impact people’s lives. It was very interesting to test what people would look for while using the app. WeClub is also a special project for me that resonates with my experiences. I always had difficulties in finding people who would do the same sports/fitness activities with me. By conducting user research, I have found that many people felt the same way I did. My intention is to respond to people’s wants to connect with other like-minded people and to get motivated to make changes for healthier lives. I believe that creating supportive communities will bring benefits to people’s lives.

Furthermore, I learned that I could save time in wireframing and prototyping by starting usability testing at an early stage so I could supplement and correct any shortcomings. Additionally, I learned that I shouldn't be afraid to deviate from my initial idea and make quick adjustments if there’s a new discovery along the way.