A social fitness app aimed at connecting people together through like-minded goals.
Date: 2017 - 2018
Role: Product Manager & Product Design
Project: Start-up app
Project Link: vytlfitness.com
Prior to pursuing my graduate degree at NYU, I had the opportunity to work at a technology start-up as a Product Manager. While I cannot display samples of the process or specific details (NDA), I can give an overview of my process, the role I played in the project and my overall takeaways.
Project Overview:
VYTL is a social fitness app for user generated videos and content. Encompassing all niches, VYTL allowed users to explore the health and fitness space on a more personal level with a strong community as support. This was an open platform for all (including those that did not traditionally find it easy to go to gyms such as those in rehabilitation or with disabilities).
Design Question:
What motivates people to work out and how do you design to cater to that motivation?
My Role & Responsibilities:
Market & User Research
Research and collect data
Persona & critical user journeys/flow
I created user "personas" of potential real end users, depicting motivations, needs, goals and expectations based on my research. This allowed my team to keep our target customer's mindset at the forefront of our design decisions.
Design
Informational architecture
Wireframing
Concept explorations
With the research and user "personas" in mind, how can we utilize design to incorporate the user's motivations, needs, goals and expectations within a fitness mindset?
Prototyping
Design experimentation
Developing data & using it to improve upon original ideas
Overall product management (make sure product is functional, usable and consistent).
Testing & User Feedback
User test with athletes and trainers and record feedback
Strategically incorporate user feedback into improved product designs
Key Takeaways:
Start with low fidelity wireframes over high-fi in the early stages. This allowed us to spend more time exploring designs and user test earlier, rather than committing too much on one design direction.
User test early! The sooner we got user feedback, the better it was to understand our user's interaction with our prototype and know what direction we needed to go moving forward.
Design with intention. Always have a clear reason for using a specific style. Too many visually stimulating elements can sometimes be distracting to users. Understand what features to highlight.