FlexPoint

This was my first introduction to UX design. I wanted to create an app during the 2020 pandemic to connect trainers and clients to form a community. I started with some basic UX design before I knew what UX design was. I figured out how to use balsamiq and then took my design to my business partner and we handed off my original designs to be reworked by a more established UX designer, learning throughout the entire process from scratch.

All of the following designs were created by Sam Watson and approved by Michael Taylor.

Roles:

Owner/Founder - Michael Taylor

Responsibilities:

- Competitor Market Research

- Business formation and legal documentation

- Original UX wireframe concept and approval

- Management
- Talent acquisition

UX Designer/Research - Sam Watson

Co-Founder/Project Manager - Lauren Pfahler

Overview

Flexpoint is an app that connects you to local trainers and classes outside of the gym setting. With the onset of COVID-19, staying healthy became more difficult as fitness centers closed and getting outside became difficult. Parks started to become the new "classroom" setting, and working out from home grew significantly in popularity. We needed to find a way to access to these new channels without prior access to a gym or coach

Original Wireframes

Having never designed an app before I scoured the internet and asked around for information. I came across Balsamiq Wireframes as a quick way to get an idea out without having to learn Figma or Adobe Xd, which could have a learning curve.

Original Designs by Michael Taylor

Process

I went to Sam Watson with the idea and some rough wires of what I envisioned. With our PM, Lauren Pfahler, we created a site map from the user and trainer perspective to provide a strong starting point.

My 8+ years of first-hand knowledge as a personal trainer was extremely valuable and helped define the initial product. However, in order to gain more insight into our potential users’ wants and needs from a non-trainer perspective, Sam personally sourced people that fit the characteristics of our target audience and conducted one-on-one user interviews with them about what qualities and attributes they were looking for in a trainer.

Additionally, Sam signed up for a few at-home fitness apps for market research, and joined a gym near her respective apartment. The gym had its own app, which was helpful to see how they organized their classes. Looking at other popular fitness apps, it was clear how intense they all are: very image-heavy, edgy- and industrial-looking designs, not very approachable for someone who might be new to the fitness world. This was a look I was not going for. Our main focus was to connect people, both to each other and the community, so we needed to make our app friendly and welcoming.

We broke down the app into five "sessions", meeting weekly for wireframe and design reviews. Over the course of four months, we went through screens for the user and trainer working through the searching, booking, and profile managing experiences for an MVP release.

Currently

As the Owner I had to make the difficult, but logical business decision to hold off on pursuing this mobile application due to current market trends.

I absolutely loved this process and it's what first introduced me to UX design which led me to pursue a career change into the field. Working with Sam Watson was an amazing experience. Seeing how she took my original designs and turned it into something I never dreamed of was absolutely incredible. I hope to continue to make designs as well as her and learn from her as much as I can to give my design the professional polish it deserves and one day create another app or lead a team to design an app from end to end.

I learned so much from this process and I hope to take the skills I learned from running my own business to more projects and build off of that foundation.