Making Fitness Fun with Easy Tasks and Team Competition.

A low-barrier, team-driven fitness app designed to motivate consistent movement through simple daily tasks, friendly challenges, and lighthearted competition.

  • Through insights gathered from user interviews, I refined the problem statement to more accurately reflect what users truly need and struggle with.

    People who exercise want a way to work out virtually with friends and participate in lighthearted challenges so they can stay motivated, maintain consistency, and enjoy exercising without feeling pressured or judged.

  • Project Case Study

    Duration 3 months

    Role UX Designer

    Tool‍ ‍Figma

    Responsibilities‍ ‍User Interview, User Testing, UI, Prototyping

Design Process

  • Conducted interviews with three people and deployed a survey regardless of their fitness level or interest to understand universal barriers, motivations, and expectations around maintaining consistent exercise habits.

  • Reviewed leading fitness and social workout apps to identify market gaps, common frustrations, and opportunities for a low-barrier, team-driven experience.

  • Created quick, low-fidelity sketches to explore core flows such as daily tasks, team creation, and point tracking, allowing rapid iteration on structure and usability.

  • Tested the early prototypes with users to validate task clarity, motivation triggers, and navigation; refined the flow to reduce friction and keep the experience lightweight.

  • Developed polished, high-fidelity designs that incorporated visual hierarchy, interaction details, and gamified elements aligned with the app’s low-threshold fitness concept.

Interviews & Survey

  • “I prefer working out with others because it makes exercising more fun and keeps me motivated. When I’m alone, I often lose focus or skip sessions.”

    J. Groesbeck

  • “Without structure or accountability, it’s easy to stop.”

    S. Kim

  • “Friendly competition motivates me to try harder, but if it feels too intense it can be stressful. I prefer challenges that encourage improvement, not just winning.”

    G. Ban

  • “Seeing progress is important because it helps me measure improvement and stay motivated over time.”

    J. Cho

  • “I’d like shared streaks, virtual group challenges, and gentle notifications to encourage participation.”

    B. Kim

  • “Having someone else involved creates accountability and makes the experience more enjoyable. You’re less likely to skip a session if you know others are counting on you.”

    T. Lee

  • “Small achievements, like completing all planned workouts in a week, feel rewarding.”

    T. Han

Competitive Analysis

Competitive Analysis

Opportunity for Inclusive Team Challenge


Most apps prioritize individual tracking or one-on-one competition. There is a clear gap in creating meaningful team versus team experiences that balance fun, fairness, and accessibility.

Research Objectives

  1. Understand how competitors design and support competitive or collaborative fitness features.

  2. Identify strengths and weaknesses in current engagement strategies.

  3. Reveal unmet needs and opportunities that can validate or challenge the assumptions behind the new app concept.

Assumptions Being Tested

  1. Users are motivated by social accountability and teamwork rather than only personal metrics.

  2. Current apps focus too much on individual progress or high-performance athletes.

  3. There is a lack of accessible and inclusive ways to compete in teams across different activity types.

Competitors Selected

  • Strava (Direct)

  • Fitbit (Direct)

  • Nike Run Club (Indirect)

  • Peloton App (Parallel)

  • Zwift (Parallel)

Full Process

The analysis began by reviewing official app pages, store listings, and third-party articles to understand each competitor’s core features and user experience. User feedback from Reddit, Trustpilot, and app store reviews was then gathered to capture reactions to competition, motivation, and social interaction. These insights were mapped into a feature matrix in Figma that compared competition modes, social connectivity, gamification, and accessibility. Clear patterns emerged, revealing strengths and weaknesses that informed design implications for a more inclusive and team-focused fitness experience.

Motivation through Social Accountability


Users consistently express that competition and camaraderie drive motivation more effectively than solo tracking.

Accessibility and Fairness as Key Differentiators


High hardware costs (Peloton, Zwift) and performance-oriented environments (Strava) exclude casual users. Designing for inclusivity, both technically and socially, presents a strong opportunity for differentiation.

Age

27

Education

BFA in Animation

Location

San Francisco, CA

Pain Points

Finds it hard to stay motivated without social accountability.

Feels most fitness apps focus on individual stats rather than teamwork.

Gets discouraged when challenges feel overly competitive or dominated by elite athletes.

Feels disconnected when his friends use different fitness platforms.

Goals

Stay consistent with workouts by engaging in friendly team-based challenges.

Feel connected to others even when exercising independently.

Experience competition that’s motivating, not intimidating.

Bio

Sarah, 27, is an animator in San Francisco who stays active but often loses consistency when project deadlines get intense. She discovered during the pandemic that working out with friends, especially through virtual challenges, keeps her far more motivated than going solo. She enjoys tracking her progress with visual data, but finds most fitness apps too focused on individual achievement.

What keeps her engaged is a sense of camaraderie and light, friendly competition. She prefers flexible workouts like running, cycling, and short HIIT sessions, using her phone and smartwatch to track activity.

Sarah Jones

“Working out is easier when I’m not doing it alone.
I love a little competition. It keeps me accountable.”

Design Focus

Accessibility

Designing low-barrier fitness tasks that anyone can start with, simple movements that build consistency without pressure.

Team Movitation

Creating a supportive team structure where progress, encouragement, and shared goals drive continuous engagement.

Light Gamification

Using gentle competition, points, streaks, and small challenges to keep the experience fun without overwhelming users.

Why it Matters

Low-barrier tasks make fitness feel approachable, helping users start without pressure. Team motivation adds accountability and support, making consistency easier to maintain. Light gamification keeps the experience fun and engaging without overwhelming users. Together, these elements create a fitness environment that feels inclusive, motivating, and sustainable for everyone.

Turning Insight Into Structure

Over the course of two weeks, I developed the sitemap, wireframes and then gathered additional insights through usability testing.

Implications for Final Design After Usability Testing

Design Implications

  • Ensure all interactive elements are appropriately sized for easy tapping.

  • Create a scalable layout for workout types to accommodate future additions without breaking the interface.

  • Balance features between health tracking and exercise variety, prioritizing user motivation and engagement throughout the app.

Key Insights

  • Interactive elements, such as the small circles representing days, were too small for easy selection. Users need larger touch targets to prevent accidental clicks.

  • The number and variety of workout types should be flexible, as users may request additional exercises. A scalable design is necessary to accommodate growth.

  • There is a trade-off between focusing on health tracking features and offering a wide variety of exercises. Users want motivation and engagement above all.

“Having someone else involved creates accountability and makes the experience more enjoyable, so you’re less likely to skip a session if you know others are counting on you."

— T. Lee

High-fidelity mockups highlight a balance of usability, gamification, and team engagement for maximum impact.

View Prototype

Where Design Meets Motivation

RELAY keeps the energy moving, making fitness social, fun, and motivating.

  • Onboarding 1

  • Onboarding 2

  • Onboarding 3

  • Sign in

  • Home

  • Activity Selected

  • Challenge Tab

  • Progress Tab

  • New Team Created

  • Profile

Turning Feedback Into Better Design

Even after creating the hi-fidelity designs, I conducted another round of usability testing and gained additional insights that helped refine the final experience.

Improving Visual Hierarchy

I received feedback that the buttons and tabs looked too similar, so I redesigned them to clearly differentiate their functions.

Improving Visual Hierarchy

I received feedback that the buttons and tabs looked too similar, so I redesigned them to clearly differentiate their functions.

Improving Visual Hierarchy

The feedback I received from Tiffany was to increase the font size so the text would be more legible. In response, I enlarged the smaller text and used different typeface weights to improve readability.

View Prototype

Reflection

Lesson Learned

What are the next steps for Relay?

My next steps focus on refining the scoring system and finalizing challenge mechanics. The goal is to keep users consistently active while ensuring that the system is fair and motivating.

How does this shape the overall vision for Relay?

Through iteration and feedback, Relay will become a platform where teamwork and shared motivation naturally reinforce positive fitness habits, turning daily workouts into a rewarding, collaborative experience.

Throughout this project, I learned that designing for motivation requires a careful balance between accessibility, engagement, and technical feasibility. Users respond best when tasks are approachable, progress is clearly visible, and social support is integrated seamlessly. Iterative testing—from interviews to low- and hi-fidelity prototypes—highlighted the importance of continuously refining both interaction design and visual hierarchy to ensure clarity and usability. On the technical side, considerations like scalable layouts for varying workout types, appropriately sized interactive elements for mobile devices, and flexible gamification mechanics proved crucial to maintaining consistency and preventing user frustration.

Who will provide feedback on these systems?

I will collaborate with fitness experts, gamification specialists, and potential users. Their insights will help validate the scoring mechanics and challenge rules to ensure they are both effective and engaging.

Onboarding Enhancement

A more personalized onboarding flow that understands users’ goals, preferred workout styles, and social habits. This allows the app to tailor challenges and recommendations from the start, increasing engagement and setting users up for long-term success.