TrainTrack
This reformatted article is the final product of my group and my extended project. For this task, we designed a smart gym app that would hopefully increase users' efficiency and accessibility. The following paper, of which I was the lead author, illustrates a propensity for self-sourced interviews and research of market competitions, aligning with my other writing samples to show my strength in preliminary preparation before diving into a final product.
ABSTRACT
Today, going to the gym is a common activity, taking a spot in daily routines and making waves through fitness trends and influencers on social media. However, its increased popularity means that gyms are becoming more crowded, leading to less efficient and more intimidating workouts for gym-goers and lost revenue for gym operators. Drawing in consistent visitors requires intentionality on small business owners’ parts, and we want to help this populating track where their users’ interests lie. As a corrective, we propose a “Smart Gym” solution to alleviate the concerns of three target groups: busy gym-goers, anxious gym-goers, and gym operators.
The exploration of Train Track reports on our preliminary research through user interviews and academic sourcing, the analysis of market competitors in support of the creation of a smart-gym mobile application.
1 Background
The gym is a central place for developing oneself, body, and wellness. However, the catharsis of working out is becoming less commonplace. With the stress of fitting self-care into busy schedules—walking into a new athletic space with body image issues or navigating spaces as an individual with countless responsibilities and little free time—going to the gym has a myriad of pain points, depending on the user. This leads to people skipping their workouts and avoiding activities pertinent to maintaining their health. On the gym management side, staff have a hard time understanding what their customers need unless they are constantly interacting with them and checking in. Without this understanding, gym management has a hard time making informed decisions that significantly benefit their customers.
The TrainTrack team strives to change this by providing novel data about user activity in the gym. We hope this information makes the gym a more accessible space and gives everyone the opportunity to care for themselves and their bodies. We want to redefine the gym and move away from the anxiety, stress, and insecurity that have become as innate to working out as movement.
1.1 User Interviews
To find user pain points related to the gym, our team interviewed people by word-of-mouth and by stopping individuals around campus and our local gyms. We ensured that we covered all our focused populations with questions for individuals who do and do not go to the gym regularly. In doing so, we also reached out to small business owners to determine what they were looking for on the administrative side of operating and investing in business operations.
1.1.1 Gym Goers
As we interviewed our first group of users—experienced gym goers—we found that they generally felt inconvenienced and irritated when faced with an overcrowded gym. With limited equipment and individuals using the pieces they need for their routines, this forced them to either edit or forgo parts of their workouts, prolonging their time in the gym. While the interviews unearthed the pain points of gym goer’s experiences, we also noted common trends between the ways these users positively encountered the gym. A theme amongst respondents was a favor towards 24/7 open hours, regular machine upkeep (for cleanliness and ease of use), variety, and low foot traffic. These pointed towards a preference for varied, clean gyms that had enough physical capacity and time for a gym goer to work out without struggling for a piece of equipment or room for their sets. Five out of our six respondents shared that they had previous experience with gym apps, with usage generally ending after they scanned their ID because “information [was] not regularly updated” (personal interview, March 7, 2024). These gym users also expressed support for a system that informs them about the duration someone will be using their desired equipment by creating a virtual waitlist via an app.
Delving deeper into this population, the average gym-goer has other time commitments that make it difficult for them to find time to work out. One gym-goer expressed that they would like to see an app-accessible calendar with up-to-date events that can be integrated with other calendar applications so they can more easily plan to go to the gym. They wanted the capacity to “integrate Google Calendar for scheduling when to go to the gym” to fit their routine with other commitments (personal interview, March 25, 2024). Thus, the information we collected points to users who rely on technology and smart integrations to organize their schedules. We see a space for TrainTrack when app integrations are an innate part of gym usage in our interview responses. Technology has a space in the gym, and users are showing their willingness to adapt.
1.1.2 Non-Gym Goers
Shifting away from regular gym goers, we also covered non-gym users during our preliminary research. Anxious gym-goers, such as those who are new to the gym or experience social anxiety, often feel intimidated by the social aspect of exercising in a gym. This even festers into an avoidance of going to the gym altogether [1]. We dove into our local community for this step of our research, asking individuals why they avoided the gym. With straightforward questions such as “Why don’t you go to the gym?”, we received answers like, “No offense to the regular gym people, but it’s always packed in there” (personal interview, March 25, 2024). One user self-identified as “gym shy” (personal interview, March 25, 2024). She expressed that it is always packed at her gym, which prevented her from going. After asking what would make her more willing to go to the gym, she expressed interest for an app feature that informs her of how crowded a gym is before she goes so she can avoid overcrowded gyms. Members of this group also indicated support for an app-accessible feature that would inform them of the degree of crowdedness at a particular gym. This would enable them to work out during off-peak hours and boost their confidence in the gym.
Through the same interviews, our team learned about user awareness of competing apps. One respondent shared their experience with the Planet Fitness app and their appreciation of the gym chain’s display of visitor trends so that they could visit when there was less activity.
New gym-goers, another user group subset, also expressed that they would benefit from resources such as video tutorials and workout plans. We received multiple comments that the use of unfamiliar equipment can be daunting. If an app were to include easy-to-access videos, they would be empowered to try out new equipment in their workout routine. Our interviews of both gym goers and gym avoiders showed that a wide range of gym users feel optimistic about integrating technology into the gym. There is significant potential for helping all gym users, and the TrainTrack team wants to pioneer this change.
1.1.3 Gym/Small Business Owners
While much of our interview research focused on the gym goer’s perspective, we would be remiss if we did not speak to gym/small business owners. Our team strives to design an app that makes data useful for both goers and administrators in the gym space. Thus, we reached out to business owners to see if active statistics had a space in their business model. With this participant group, we found a general willingness to work with technology. Each participant had expressed experience with a website as an integral part of their process and presence in the gym market. Additionally, they highlighted the necessity for the technology they use to effectively communicate hours, announcements, and any maintenance that may affect customers (personal interview, April 1, 2024).
Regarding how user tracking could benefit their business decisions, the small business owners expressed that purchasing equipment can be difficult, especially considering that they are significant investments and gym-goers are not always predictable users. Therefore, we believe that having concrete evidence of usage trends would be helpful for making financial decisions to ensure that their customers are pleased and their monetary resources are being put toward high-traffic areas. However, we will cover our integration of business owners’ struggles in greater detail in Section 2.1.1.: an exploration of how we manifested our interview findings in a smart application design.
1.2 Related Academic Sources
People with disabilities and elderly gym users expressed that they would like to see gyms become more accessible. Busy gyms are a barrier that prevents these populations from being able to work out because crowded gyms are more hazardous and harder to navigate. Many members of this group are also interested in a feature that could accurately inform them about how busy the gym is currently and in the future. This would allow differently-abled populations to work out safely, enabling them to maintain their quality of life and preserve their independence [2].
We also found that novice gym-goers were hesitant to try new equipment because they were wary of using equipment incorrectly. We believe that the addition of video tutorials would make the gym more accessible by providing guidance on how to use equipment appropriately (as mentioned in Section 1.1). As a result, users would feel more capable and confident in the gym. This connects to our exploration of academic sources as we found that access to the gym is important because studies consistently show that working out has a positive impact on holistic health [3].
From the gym operator's perspective, mobile apps are a tool for data collection. As electronic tools become more accessible, gym operators gain access to valuable information that can be translated into actionable insights [4]. Member statistics provide gym operators with a deeper understanding of their customers’ habits and preferences. This information is an asset that helps gym operators make informed decisions regarding the management of a business, a finding that intersects with the insight we were able to gather from our user interviews of business owners.
Supporting gym operators in the form of technology, in turn, makes the gym a more enjoyable experience for members. The integration of technology in gyms can alert gym employees to equipment that requires maintenance or a spill in the weightlifting room. The continual upkeep of gym facilities and the timely resolution of issues ensures that the gym can retain members and, as a result, earn profit [5].
Thus, research suggests that the incorporation of technology is a win-win for both gym users and gym operators. From the gym-anxious gym goer to users who struggle with accessibility while yearning for the physical benefits of exercise, TrainTrack seeks accessibility in its features. With academic findings and self-sourced interviews, our team found a plethora of potential improvements in the gym market built upon a wealth of preliminary research.
1.3 Related Works
During our research, we found another application called upace [6] that appears to be a direct competitor to our proposed application. upace, integrated on college campuses, made its first partnership with Rutgers University-New Brunswick, providing live data for in-use cardio equipment, a scheduling platform, and general information about the gym’s facilities. Since then, upace’s website has published its integration at Florida State University. However, investigating both sources reveals that upace has since been decommissioned from the gyms’ apps. Reviews of FSU’s current fitness app reflect that the university revamped its software to a different developer in 2021 [7]. following upace’s introduction in 2018 [8].
To investigate upace usage in greater detail, our team reached out to Rutgers University’s Recreation Center and got into contact with a Rutgers Recreation employee, who we will refer to as Jane [9]. She provided integral administrative insight on why the university decided to decommission its upace integration. According to Jane, Rutgers has a preexisting app they use for their gym; upace was an additional feature, and it was “already difficult to get students to download our own app and then a second app.” On top of these struggles, Jane continued to expanded upon Rutger’s pain points in her email:
Although we thought it would be [a] great service for students to be able to know how many people were working out at a given time by looking at the Upace app, we found that the students were not interested. We have 5 facilities[,] and we thought it might get students to go to other fitness centers if one was busy[,] but it didn’t seem to alter anyone’s decision. Students have specific times they can work[,] and they were not altering times or locations based on how crowded the fitness center was.”
Other than student use, Jane mentioned upace’s start-up status being a major inhibitor to Rutgers’ use. The administrative barriers were “cumbersome, difficult to work with and get the info we needed and make changes when we had changes in our schedule.” Making the software work for them, even with the supportive team, was a frustrating process. Thus, Rutgers’ struggles point to a myriad of pain points that triggered them to move away from the partnership: points that have continued to affect its presence in the smart gym market.
Expounding on Jane’s feedback, upace’s non-branded partnerships through the main upace app have garnered negative reviews, with users documenting they are unable to log into the app without it crashing or glitches that momentarily display their gym’s workout schedule before the interface closes. One reviewer stated, “it doesn't even open without crashing”[10]. Other than it being clear that upace has been unable to maintain a stable presence in its gyms, our app maintains its edge over the competing software. With the user in mind, we are not the reservation and administrative app upace has since pivoted towards. We seek to provide live data on all equipment, whether it be squat racks or cardio machines. Additionally, our plans to integrate videos that show how to use each piece of equipment further encourage users to approach the gym without trepidation.
While there seems to have been another direct competitor to the idea we are proposing, GymFlow—an idea presented at the University of South California—has died out over the decade since the team’s initiative. However, our idea retains differentiating factors from GymFlow. For example, we do not want to merely show the gym’s overall activity. Rather, we want to empower businesses and users with easy-to-install equipment that presents data for specific equipment. Other market competitors are along the same lines as the original GymFlow, giving users the data for the number of people in the building rather than honing in singular tools. These are apps such as Waitz and even Google’s in-house integration that enables searchers to see average activity trends through a simple graph display for the number of people at an establishment. Furthermore, Waitz relies on the installation of external hardware to track users; the company adds WIFI/Bluetooth trackers for measuring digital traffic to provide its platform with live data [11]. Nevertheless, our proposed solution contrasts its competitors with the physical nature of the hardware, relying on accelerometers and active action to give users the most accurate perspective on what equipment is in use.
Honing in on a fitness app that integrates ideas similar to Google and Waitz, Planet Fitness’ app arose as a competitor, illustrating similar trends in the gym space that we discovered through user interviews [12]. When reaching out to students who do not use the gym, as mentioned in Section 1.1, one of the respondents stated that Planet Fitness’ in-house app showed how busy a location was for users to gauge their visits (personal interview). Upon investigation, we found that the gym franchise does not show the level of detail we seek to integrate into our app: general gym busyness versus specific equipment. Rather, Planet Fitness has a simple interface that uses modulating, colored bars to illustrate the respective locations’ foot traffic, as seen in the image. With the diversity of groups that we seek to help through our application, there is a necessity to investigate software made with gym operators in mind. We plan on providing gym operators with the data they need to make smart investments in their businesses and divert their money to where it needs to be. Thus, competitors such as GymFlow [13], separate from the previously mentioned GymFlow developed at USC, PushPress [14], and Gymdesk are administrative tools to organize memberships, attendance, and bookings on the gym owners’ side of operations.
Our application moves away from its competitors through the diversity of who it serves. We are creating a hub for gym goers and operators, creating data collections that will best serve all users’ needs. As gym goers utilize their data to choose the best times to visit and what equipment to start on, gym operators will have the chance to communicate with their customers, invest in their gyms based on user activity, and manage administrative work in an app that is the “best of both worlds.”
2 Our Solution
We propose a solution that attempts to address all our user classes’ problems at once. By installing affordable accelerometers on each piece of gym equipment, gymgoers should feel more in control of their exercise schedule and experience [15]. In addition, gym owners will receive a better understanding of how to optimize their gym for increased revenue and customer satisfaction.
As we explore TrainTrack’s novel structure, it is important to note that our app also includes common features that many other competing gym apps implement. For gym owners, this includes membership and promotion campaign management. For gym users, this includes QR code sign-in, gym info, workout tracking, and much more. Thus, while our solution embodies a new approach to old problems, our integration of common features will facilitate a smooth transition to the app with recognizable tools.
2.1 Main Application Views
Our app comes with two views for our two broadest user classes: gym administrators/operators and gym users. With this separated view, we think we will be able to best address the pain points that arose in our interviews of both visitors and administrators, streamlining the user experience for both groups when they are using the application for varied purposes. These views will diverge after the onboarding process, as users and gym owners are directed to their respective portals with the permissions allocated to their accounts. Therefore, within these views, we will focus on key features such as the TrainTrack’s active map view, statistics tracking, and general design that can be used across gyms to fit within our branding or an experience honed to their image.
Before we delve into the unique features of each view, we want to cover the ways TrainTrack continues to adhere to User Experience Design (UXD) principles in its design. Throughout both views, the app includes a central navigation bar at the bottom of the screen view of the app, as pictured in Figure 2. This anchors the user’s experience in one familiar feature that travels with the user throughout each view, excluding the onboarding process that precedes the users’ access to all TrainTrack’s features. With UXD in mind, TrainTrack was designed with a honed user experience as our motivation, creating an app that makes the gym space more accessible without sacrificing usability.
2.1.1 Administrative View
Diving into how the administrative and user views diverge, we want to pivot towards a look at features unique to the business operator’s portal. The administrative view contains a variety of statistics that describe the gym’s usage over time. Gym operators can view these statistics over days, months, or custom time windows. Depending on preference, staff can make some of these statistics available to gym goers too. We will make these time options available using data-specific controls, “combin[ing] text fields and other controls to create hybrid controls for getting values of specific types from users” [16]. The design choice enables users to quickly scroll to their adjusted interval while doubly eliminating mistyped information or a value the app is not able to process.
Because of the accelerometer attached to each piece of equipment, gym owners can see which individual machines are most or least popular. In addition, they can see how these trends change, informing them of whether the change they see is a long-term shift or a short-term fad. From here, we believe they can decide if they want to buy more pieces of popular equipment or sell unused equipment. TrainTrack is designed to address the business owners’ anxiety we encountered during our preliminary research; we want to help gym operators make the best investments in their businesses and cater to their customers’ needs to make the gym the best space it can be.
Our app also allows staff to use this data to manage user membership. Staff can view attendance statistics such as average attendance over time, peak hours, check-in frequency, and membership trends (Figure 16 in Progress Gallery). This information can further help gym owners as they can see how membership and attendance change as they buy or sell certain pieces of equipment. Additionally, the TrainTrack team believes that there is added potential in the possibility for business owners being able to use this information for marketing purposes by advertising membership deals during slow months and adding more staff to the floor during busy hours to present their ideal business model.
Finally, the admin view allows staff to have full control over what users can see in the user view (as we will explore in Section 2.1.2). Among other things, they can configure what gym events or workout tutorials are available. We hope to make this experience as simple as possible by giving owners direct control over their event calendar, countering the experiences that Jane shared about Rutgers’ integration of upace—the struggle of going through a third party to update events (personal email). This makes TrainTrack an organized hub for all important information so that the gym can best communicate important information and reach its customers without bridging into completely unfamiliar technology. Our interviews with business owners indicated that each respondent had experience with websites and administrative portals used in running their business. Therefore, we believe that the jump to TrainTrack would not be an overwhelming transition in a business owner’s search for functionality and ease. All the more, and for increased efficiency of communication, the admin view allows staff to send real-time push notifications that will be received by every member with the app to facilitate easy, straightforward communication lines from administrator to gym goer.
2.1.2 User View
When TrainTrack’s users open the app, they will be met with an onboarding procedure, paired with a progress bar. This stage of the user experience, as mentioned in Section 2.1, will be where the user and administrator views diverge as the app opens to respective views based on allocated permissions. Shifting to the gym goer particularly, the visual indicator of their advancement (a progress bar) connects to the Five Dimensions of Usability in its adherence to efficiency and pandering to a user’s state of mind. Adding a progress bar to a page enables users to view “the conditions of their current environment” and confirm their work status” as shown in the image [17].
Moving onto the user view’s main screen, users can see real-time statistics on gym attendance. This includes information on which specific machines or pieces of equipment are in use and how many people are currently in the gym. They can also see historical trends of busy times in the gym, like what can be seen in the admin view. For information on specific machines, users can either scroll through a list of available equipment or view a map of the gym that includes equipment icons in their respective physical locations. If equipment is highlighted green on the map, it is free to use. If it is colored red, it is currently in use. Clicking on a specific machine opens a page of information about how to use the machine, what body parts it exercises, and the historical time spent on that machine. We believe that this feature will especially help new gym-goers who may be confused about how to use a machine or even what machine to use, hopefully addressing the gym anxiety we encountered from non-gym goers during our interviews (Section 1.1).
Furthermore, based on how busy the gym is, we believe that these features will enable users to decide whether they want to go to the gym. If someone is already at the gym, they can check if the equipment they are waiting on is available without spending time physically looking for it. In addition, if the equipment they want is in use, users can see suggestions for similar equipment that works the same or similar muscles.
To integrate more of the insight we learned from users during preliminary interviews, the TrainTrack team added an optional “nudging” feature in the app settings. This feature will send users a push notification when our app detects that they have been resting for too long. The time until the nudge can be configured to the user’s preferences, based on their resting time preferences or workout routine. Users can also turn on a separate peer-to-peer nudging feature. This allows users to notify politely and anonymously someone using equipment that another person is waiting to use it after them. To do this, a user must click on equipment that is in use, and then click nudge. If users find that being nudged negatively impacts their workout, they can opt out of nudging, preventing them from receiving or sending nudges. In this way, only people who are receptive to receiving nudges can also send nudges to others.
Finally, users can view personal insights based on their workout data. In addition to common features such as gym visit consistency, they can view what specific machines they used during their workout and their favorite and least favorite machines. If any muscle groups have been under-exercised, this information can also be viewed on the personal insights page. All this information helps inform users on how to have a more balanced, healthy workout routine to make going to the gym a more approachable habit.
3 Limitations
With the timeline and setting of the project, the TrainTrack team was incredibly satisfied with the number of interviews we collected over a variety of user groups. However, there were certain populations we would have preferred to gather direct data from rather than solely supplementing our planning with academic research. For disabled and elderly individuals, as well as participants who were expressly gym shy and struggled with body image issues, we believe that our data collection could have been strengthened by more responses. However, the timeline and general resources allocated to the project led to our team’s focus on more accessible and interviewable populations, located more readily in our on-campus and on-site gym settings.
4 Conclusion and Future Work
Overall, TrainTrack’s development was an in-depth, hands-on exploration of the User Experience Design process for each of our team’s members. From developing our interview questions to reaching out to friends and strangers alike, our research explored how we gathered respondents to create a diverse array of perspectives in making design decisions. Contacting users who actively, or retroactively, used our competitors and exploring the genuine presence TrainTrack would have in the industry has been an indelible experience of realistic app development. We worked with one another to create both lo-fi and high-fi wireframes to explore possible app designs, supplementing our process with user profiles along the way. Therefore, throughout TrainTrack’s rise to tangibility, our team has paid mind to lessons learned in our RHE 330C: User Experience (UX) Design Course. We have found that each step of the process—interviewing, reading through academic discourse, creating hypothetical customers, logo and brand design, and mock-up production—has created a product straight from our initial ideation and only improved by the influence of the individuals who would be using our app.
Regarding future work with TrainTrack, we believe that there are existing areas of improvement to ensure that we can better support a larger array of users, as explained in section 3. Limitations. Through this development, TrainTrack would foster future application updates, expanded accessibility, and continued interest from subscribers of the app.
Whether or not TrainTrack hits the application store or gym market in the future, the application stands as an example of User Design procedures put into practice. The layered steps, relying on generous respondents and instructor guidance, underlie a presentation, article, and hypothetical app built upon a wealth of preparation that many of our team members did not realize went into an app’s creation. It is often too easy to ignore the efforts invested into UX design; the process is meant to make an app as easy and natural to use as possible. However, TrainTrack was a labor of love and a reminder that User Experience Design is at the heart of any effective app design, catered to an everlasting dedication to the Five Dimensions of Usability.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper would not have been possible without the support and guidance of Dr. Donnie Sackey in our RHE 330C: User Experience (UX) Design class. His in-depth instruction and the time set aside for us to work on this initiative were an indelible aspect of TrainTrack’s development. Similarly, the resources and research access afforded to us by the University of Texas at Austin ensured that we were able to delve deeply into the populations we sought to help. Finally, we want to show appreciation for all the individuals who agreed to participate in our preliminary interviews. Their time, suggestions, and insight into their daily routines made up the core of our work, and TrainTrack would not be the same without the vulnerability they expressed during their answers to our questions.
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