EMPLOYER
Kickoff
TEAM
2 People, CEO/Product Manager, Myself
CONTRIBUTION
Co-Creation Workshops, User flows, Usability Testing, Wireframes, Web Responsive
DURATION
April-June 2021
Kickoff is an early stage startup provides an asynchronous two-sided marketplace for coaches to meet clients who they guide through workouts and nutrition plans. While communicating via text message with their clients was straight forward, scheduling weekly workouts (new design pictured in the center panel above) was unintuitive for the coaches and required in depth instruction from coach managers.
THE CHALLENGE
For one of the first projects I completed at Kickoff, I worked as the lead designer for the coach experience to redesign the Auto-Scheduler feature. With access to a database of exercises, the Auto Scheduler (A-S) allowed coaches to create a workout plan complete with guided exercises in a matter of seconds what would normally take 15-30 minutes to plan and schedule. Unfortunately, most coaches found it too confusing, opting for manually scheduling workouts in their client’s calendar which took much longer and limited their ability to scale their client base.
DESIGN PROCESS
RESEARCH
User Interviews · Observation · Co-Creation
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User Interviews illustrate the concerns of the coaches, and help me empathize from the perspective of the users.
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Observation brings awareness to problems that may not have been obvious.
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Co-Creation brings consensus and prioritizes solutions that have the greatest impact to users.
USER INTERVIEWS
Interviewing and collaborating with subject matter experts, I was able to understand the components of putting together a workout and what is needed for scheduling workouts.
Interviewing and collaborating with subject matter experts, I was able to understand the components of putting together a workout and what is needed for scheduling workouts.
OBSERVATION
The existing Auto Scheduler was comprised of 3 steps or tabs. If a coach had it set up optimally (the set-up itself was more involved, requiring dedicated time), they would be able to simply review and select "Auto-Schedule" a weekly process requiring 3 clicks.
Coaches were confused by the many different kinds of controls.
What needs to be “Automated” and what does not.
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Coaches preferred being able to make minor adjustments to the schedule as they planned.
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While automation can be a very effective time saver, certain actions did not take much time from coaches or only required review, like designating workouts and days.
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The original A-S populated recommended stages (groups of workouts) without a way to explore further, and coaches felt the A-S was limiting.
CO-CREATION
I led co-creation brainstorm, idea grouping, and prioritization sessions with coaches that built on previous sessions with other coaches.
Different coaches had had different color post-its. Pink Post-it was the first group of 2 coaches where one coach took notes, and therefore had more ideas that subsequent groups built on.
One request we were not able to address in this project was longer term program planning for coaches who would like to create a macro plan of 6-8 weeks for their clients with progressions (increasing exercise difficulty).
INSPIRATION
I referenced interaction patterns from analogous experiences like, Google Calendar, AirTable, Calendly and Asana. I also took inspiration from e-commerce shopping apps and entrepreneurial apps like Airbnb and tools like Figma.
OPPORTUNITIES
What needs to be “Automated” and what does not.
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Coaches preferred being able to make minor adjustments to the schedule as they planned.
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While automation can be a very effective time saver, certain actions did not take much time from coaches or only required review, like designating workouts and days.
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The original A-S populated recommended stages (groups of workouts) without a way to explore further, and coaches felt the A-S was limiting.
WIREFRAMES
(The What) - Addressing pain points
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Reduce time it takes to find and schedule workouts
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Filter/narrow down workout and exercise choices from the Library based on Client needs and goals
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Allow coaches to determine days of workouts
PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS
PRODUCT DESIGN PRINCIPLES
(The How) - Defining Requirements
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Surface Information
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Reduce Complexity
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Communicate Function
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Integrate Flexibility
SURFACE INFORMATION
Problem. Coaches had difficulty understanding what "Stages" were, (they were series of workouts, which are composed of groups of exercises). It was also unclear what exercises the workouts contained.
There was also no way to browse the extensive library of workouts or see workouts that the coaches created themselves.
Solution. Get feedback from coaches about what information is important for them to make the decision to add the workout to their client’s program.
Introduce a search function that also surfaces coach created workouts.
In the workout card design explorations show whether it is a Stage (set of workouts) or a Workout (set of exercises) feature the workout and stage, what kind of workout (circuits or super sets), the difficulty level, the equipment required, the average client rating, and the number of that workout completed by the client as well as the last workout completed date.
We allowed coaches to preview the workouts in the Stage, or the exercises in the workout.
REDUCE COMPLEXITY
Problem. The user flows still allowed errors to occur which were unintuitive to fix (Coaches can designate the number of active workout days in a week, rest days or specific workouts on designated days. If any designated days are conflicting or the number of days/workouts selected are insufficient, it showed an error message).
Solution. Design avoidable errors out of the user flow.
Explore other methods to “designate” days. The idea that felt most intuitive to coaches was having controls for each exercise on each day of the week and “locking” the exercise to the day.
Rather than having two separate screens for scheduling and previewing, I combined the two functions into one screen.
COMMUNICATE FUNCTION
Problem. Most coaches actually did not understand that the A-S was repeating or copying forward the selected workouts for each client, and unless otherwise designated, randomly populating them each week.
Essentially saving and rotating workouts into the next week’s schedule.
Solution. We needed to make this function more obvious to coaches.
A similar feature would be a basket or cart in an e-commerce app, like a subscription grocery box.
Explorations of the selected workouts "cart" and the Workouts Search Filter used in usability testing with coaches.
INTEGRATE FLEXIBILITY
Problem. Coaches preferred being able to make minor adjustments to the schedule as they planned.
Solution. Give coaches the opportunity to alter or adjust the schedule at multiple points in the user flow.
In the final designs, coaches are able to add or delete workouts in both the Workouts and Plan Tabs/Steps of the user flow.
PROTOTYPES & TESTING
All research, feedback, and mapping resulted in low fidelity wireframes which went through one round of feedback with coaches. Then I moved on to usability testing medium fidelity prototypes with 5 coaches who ranged from new and tenured Kickoff coaches who were active users of the A-S or not using it at all.
SURFACE INFORMATION
Feedback from coaches. Coaches loved the ability to see more information about the stages and preview the exercises in the workouts. They only needed to see the total number of workouts completed, and the date of the last completion.
Feedback from devs. While we can display the preview of the workouts and exercises easily, adding the functionality of editing the workout at this point, because of the way the previous A-S was implemented, would require significantly more development time.
COMMUNICATE FUNCTION
Feedback from coaches. Both the icon with a number and the “Selected Workouts” button were confusing. “Workouts in Rotation” was a lot more intuitive.
Feedback from devs. We can make the “Workouts in Rotation” the landing page rather than a secondary page.
HANDOFF & NEXT STEPS
Feedback from PM and Devs. We need to phase the roll-out of new features. What are the features we can prioritize?
Solution. For phase 1, we could include the new workout and stage cards with the exercise preview, and the new filter design within the existing tab flow.
I integrated the new workout cards with previews into the existing architecture of the auto-scheduling feature in preparation for handoff.
While most coaches planned workouts for their clients on Desktop, the application is web responsive so I also kept mobile interaction in mind throughout the process.
Ultimately, throughout the process of research and testing, I was able to identify multiple product areas to improve. We had enough ideas for 3 quarters but needed to reduce the scope to the current quarter.
New designs handed off to devs
Future State - to revisit for prioritization and implementation as resources allow