This school project was to redesign the Fitbit app to promote healthy behaviors, enhance user experience, and improve motivation for healthy eating habits by developing new features.
Avyay Kashyap
Sathvica Kothapalli
Daria Smyslova
UX design
UI design
5 weeks
Meals play a crucial role in an individual's life, impacting their physical and mental well-being, social interactions, and overall quality of life. However, keeping track of all the meals can take time and effort. Goals and expectations from meals differ from person to person, and maintaining a food log can help individuals develop a baseline for their eating habits. It allows them to reflect upon their current behaviors and make informed decisions to enact the changes they wish to see in their lifestyle. Maintaining a food diary can help individuals lead healthier and more fulfilling life.
To familiarize ourselves with the FitBit Ecosystem, as well as to gain insights into users' perceptions and experiences with the FitBit app, identify common themes and issues that users face, as well as positive aspects of the app that users enjoy, and identify patterns in user behaviors, such as which features are most used or which parts of the app are being perceived as confusing or frustrating.
To collect qualitative data regarding the first-hand experiences, opinions, attitudes, and perceptions of individuals who use Fitbit and other fitness gadgets and applications users as well as those who aim to adopt a healthier lifestyle but currently do not use technology for this purpose. Affinity diagrams helped combine the information from each interview participant and see the trends and insights within those responses.
It appeared paradoxical that interviewees recognized the importance of food tracking to lose or gain weight as well as the complementary role of a healthy diet in supporting physical activity, yet they rarely utilized technology for these purposes.
At the end of our interviews and preliminary secondary research we realized we needed more input to narrow down our design frame and decided to use the in-class ‘Gallery walk as an opportunity to do the same.To engage a broader audience in the design process, we aimed to identify the changes people desire to make in their diet and the motivations behind them. Those valuable insights were then utilized to generate innovative ideas and gather feedback from diverse individuals with varying perspectives on healthy eating.
To generate a realistic user profile, we would design by using the archetypal descriptions of users that we obtained from our primary research.
Target users
Redesign Fitbit's food feature by motivating users to log their food intake by simplifying the process, rewarding the activity, enabling social engagement, and allowing the user to reflect on their food habits.
The foundation of our design lies in the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). The theory suggests that if the capability to change one's behavior exists, enabling self-efficacy, making the recipient aware of the potential health outcomes, and reinforcing these two aspects will help achieve one's behavior goal.
Our objective was to facilitate behavior change in the user by increasing their self-efficacy, providing positive external reinforcement, and managing outcome expectations through improved knowledge.
We tested 5 users between the ages of 25-35, they were asked to perform four assigned tasks, and their actions were observed. Subsequently, we posed a few questions to gain insight into the reasoning behind their approach.
We identified five most essential features and interviewed the same participants, "Smart cookies," "share stories," "Diet tracking," "nutrition information," and "AI image recognition," and posed two questions about each of these features:
Q1: Given the feature is part of the application, how do you feel?
Q2: Given the feature is not part of the application, how do you feel?
Based on user responses, we labeled the features as "must-have feature", "performance feature," and "delightful feature."
To improve self efficacy, the act of logging in any food a user wanted to input had to be simplified. The user is allowed to log food via camera, audio or text. The goal is to get the user to just log food without trying to be precise in order to reduce the barrier to entry. After logging their food, the user is provided the option to share the post with their friends on Fitbit. To tag the food, the user is prompted to select a flair.
The user can quickly log food using the camera. Through AI image recognition, the food is identified. If done correctly, the user can confirm this and log the food. Else, they can type the name of the food which can then be used to train the algorithm. The log contains both the image and the name in text.
Alternatively, the user is able to log their food by recording a voice note which gets transcribed. The log contains both the transcription and the voice note.
In order to reduce the barrier to entry for text input of food, we eliminated some of the tasks other food tracking apps record. The user here only needs to input the food they ate, not the quantities, or any specifics. This should allow the user to use the app as a sort of journal.
A rewards system that’s fun and educational! Incorporating nutritional and health-related information in the form of ‘Smart Cookies’, adds an element of interest and entertainment. Users may find learning new things about nutritional value or health benefits engaging, which can enhance their overall experience while providing tips and tricks to improve their habits.
The Diet tracking provides a visual record of their meals as well as offers daily weekly and monthly statistics on the consumption of macro-nutrients. This enables the user to to reflect on their behaviors, identify patterns in their diets and make informed decisions.
We need to find a way to enhance the amount of information that users can input while still benefiting from the ease of use provided by the lower barrier to entry.
While Smart Cookies feature played a vital role in reinforcing expected outcomes, it did not meet user expectations during usability testing. We have yet to decide whether to improve or abandon it, and this decision will require further research.
Social Stories feature was well-received as a motivational tool, but it did not meet certain user needs, such as accessing shared food recipes. We need to explore ways to incorporate these missing features.