Uforia Studios

A prototype fitness/dance studio app
My roles: UX Designer, UX Researcher
Tools: Sketch, Invision
Project Overview
Uforia Studios is a fitness studio chain in San Francisco that offers three distinct class to keep the workouts diverse and fun, for example: spin, core strengthening, and Hip Hop dance.
Although it is a boutique fitness environment, they offer more affordable classes ($15-$20) and cater mostly towards younger working women and students (ages 18-35).
A few hindering problems for Uforia was its reliance on 3rd party companies to facilitate class purchasing and registration, and instructor scheduling. This 3rd party company was called mind body which is a one size fits all type platform that companies subscribe to in order to facilitate most of the company's and clients' needs. It was fairly inexpensive, but the UI feels and operates very heavy since it has to be customizable to any studio. Additionally, the aesthetics were all shades of grey which did not align with Uforia's bold purple and pinks. Lastly, clients including myself at the time were frequently annoyed by the amount of bugs encountered during use and were always wishing for a better solution. The demand for a new solution was the impetus for this project.

Objectives:
1) Construct a fitness app highly personalized to the needs. and demands of Uforia and its clients
2) Increase Uforia revenue via sales by delivering a superior experience and creation of an online store.
3) Build hype around upcoming classes
4) Build community through feedback and learning
5) Make learning about classes and instructors easier to navigate
My Contributions
UX Research
Using the Mindbody mobile app to sign up for classes, followed by conversations with other clients about their experience using the app. I then examined other platform apps like ClassPass and Movie Pass to learn from their success and failures. Additionally, I spoke with Uforia front desk workers and managers who frequently use the Mindbody app to learn what problems they encountered, and identifying opportunities I should explore. I then made a list of the most painful and frequent problems to give my overall design process structure and direction.

UX Design
Using what I had learned from other fitness apps during the research phase gave me a good foundation for assembling a solid user journey. Incorporating the Uforia brand and values were also considered to make the online experience consistent with the in-studio experience. Since Uforia already had a pretty successful marketing scheme in place I chose to use a number of icons and images that were already being used on their website to form part of the design language of this app. My process in a nutshell was hitting a few design goals each week, then upload it to Invision, and present it to a couple desk workers, clients, or managers depending on who it was most relevant to, and iterate based on the feedback.
UX Research
To be able to build a list of paint points and opportunities I relied on my own personal experience using Uforia's current mobile app (MindBody) and learning from other users. Since I was already taking classes at the studio for several months I was already familiar with the company's philosophy in how they aim to create an effective and fun workout. Using their app did not reinforce any of their values, nor did it feature a user journey similar to the in studio one. Bottom line is that there was almost no continuity. Speaking with desk workers, manages, instructors, and clients revealed many kinds of frustrations on their part. I would simply ask them if there was anything frustrating about the app and assembled a list prioritized by frequency and pain levels.
They also gave me a few possible solutions to the issues they were experiencing.
To search for more areas of opportunity to improve the app I test other fitness app. I downloaded multiple and tested them to see how they organized features and what steps they take users through. I essentially took the most straight forward and useful elements from these and MindBody to form a list of opportunities I can pursue. Additionally, I looked at the Uforia brand and studio layouts. I took colors and icons from the Uforia website, and explored a couple to studios to capture what the in-studio experience was like before, during, and after class. What textures, patterns, and colors were most prominent? Concerning the studio, what do people discuss or comment on? The answers to the questions, thankfully, came fairly easily was implemented into the designs you see below.
Conclusion
The final leg of this project was both a success and a failure. After running through numerous iterations rounds I believed I had arrived at a strong enough prototype to present to the company CEO. I had received positive feedback from managers, clients, and front desk workers who had seen and tested the app, so I was feeling pretty good! Following my presentation with the CEO who was really impressed, she disclosed to me that it would not be possible to finance such a project because they were just about to announce the opening of a new studio next month. Although she said she liked it, their current app does work though with minimal approval from nearly everyone I spoke with. Going into this project I knew there was a low likelihood of my prototype getting implemented but I still wanted to go through with it since I really appreciated the kind of product the Uforia staff was putting out. Who knows I may get a call in a few years to work with their developers.
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