trainON
designed to help users build sustainable workout habits through guidance, motivation, and routine-building
Role:
Sole Product Designer | Product Strategist
Duration:
8 Months
Problem
Most fitness apps are built for people who already know how to work out. For beginners, the gap between wanting to be consistent and actually knowing what to do is where motivation dies. Without clear guidance on form, technique, and progress, users hit frustration fast — and quit faster.
Solution
trainON is a fitness app built around the three things that actually keep beginners going: understanding what they're doing, seeing that it's working, and having a plan to follow.
The app visualizes muscle activation during exercises so users know they're moving correctly, rewards progress through a lightweight motivation system so consistency feels worth it, and organizes workouts through an integrated calendar so there's always a clear next step.
The goal isn't to build the most powerful fitness app — it's to build the one that beginners actually stick with.
Research
I conducted both secondary and primary research to understand user needs and gaps in existing fitness solutions. Analysis of current apps and online content revealed common pain points, including difficulty following workouts, unclear guidance on proper form, and lack of strong motivation systems. I then recruited participants through screener surveys and conducted 1:1 interviews, synthesizing insights into affinity maps and personas. Key themes emerged around lack of motivation, limited foundational knowledge, and uncertainty in starting or maintaining a routine. These findings shaped trainON’s focus on delivering a more guided, structured, and motivating fitness experience.
Research Synthesis & Key Insights
After analyzing the survey, the issues were categorized into four main issues: variety workout, technique and form, staying motivated and routine building. This provided insight and highlighted the main issues that will need to be addressed when designing the app.
Four features shaped this design:
- muscle activation highlights to build form confidence
- workout variety to keep users engaged
- a reward system to reinforce consistency
- a calendar for routine building
"I look up videos or ask someone certified because I'm never sure if I'm doing it right — when there's no one to check my form, I just stop doing the exercise."
— Interview participant
"I'll tell myself I'll do it tomorrow... I had a routine going for almost a year once, but after a few missed days it felt too hard to get back into."
— Interview participant
72% of beginner gym-goers quit within the first 3 months due to lack of guidance, unclear progress, and low motivation.
Users get bored quickly with repetitive routines and need a range of exercises across muscle groups to stay engaged and look forward to working out.
Users lack confidence in whether they're performing exercises correctly. Without visual feedback or guidance, they stop doing exercises rather than risk injury.
Progress that isn't visible is progress that doesn't feel real. Users need acknowledgment of their consistency to stay committed and push through low-motivation days.
Getting back into a routine after a disruption feels overwhelming. Users need structure and a clear plan to follow so missing a day doesn't mean abandoning the habit entirely.
Ideation & Direction
How might we help encourage users to work out when they are not feeling motivated?
How might we give users enough knowledge and information to perform the exercise confidently in the proper technique and form to not hurt their body?
How might we help track and show progress for users to feel that they are making progress towards their goal everyday?
Site Map
User Flow
Design Rationale
The design of trainON focused on addressing three key user challenges identified during research: lack of exercise knowledge, difficulty maintaining motivation, and inconsistency in building workout routines. To support users with limited fitness knowledge, the app highlights targeted muscle groups during exercises, helping users better understand proper form and the purpose of each movement. To address motivation, a lightweight rewards system was introduced to reinforce progress and encourage consistency without overwhelming the core workout experience. Finally, a simple calendar-based planning system was designed to help users schedule workouts and build sustainable routines. These decisions prioritized clarity, guidance, and habit-building to support users at different stages of their fitness journey.
Sketches
Wireframes V1
Style Guide
Fleshing it all out
The goal of the app was to create a simple and effective app for users working towards a fitness goal. With multiple iterations, I made sure to reference my mood board and style guide to make sure my design aligned with the brand.
Prototype
I developed a high-fidelity prototype to bring key features and user flows to life, focusing on workout selection, guided exercise experience, and progress tracking. This allowed for realistic user interactions during testing and helped validate core design decisions.
Usability Testing
I conducted usability testing to evaluate how users interacted with the app and identify areas for improvement. I recruited five participants through Slack and my personal network and conducted sessions via Zoom. Participants were asked to complete three key tasks while I observed their behavior and gathered feedback. The main usability challenges identified are summarized above.
What Needed to be Changed
I conducted a usability test to observe how users would approach and interact with my app and uncover issues that would need to be adjusted. I recruited five participants through Slack and my friends. While conducting the test through Zoom, participants were asked to complete 3 tasks and the main findings are listed below:
Findings #1: Navigation Bar
Task: Start a workout
80% of users attempted to select the workout icon in the navigation bar at the start of the first task. After clicking, participants realized it is not usable and selected what was shown instead.
Findings #2: User Interface
Task: Claim the reward from the completed goal
3 of 5 users found the goals task to be confusing and dull. The pop up of completing the goal was underwhelming and the colors did not match the impression the page was supposed to give off.
Findings #3: Information Architecture
Task: Create a recurring event in Calendar
Several participants were confused and stuck when the task ended abruptly with no clear indication of where to go next. All users clicked around until the button was revealed of where they could go next.
Impact and Reflection
trainON pushed me further into the design process than any project I'd done before. I'd conducted interviews before, but this was my first time running usability testing — and it changed how I think about designing entirely.
The biggest takeaway was how differently people interpret the same interface. What feels obvious to the designer is rarely obvious to the user. Watching five different people interact with the same screen and get stuck in five different places made that undeniable. It's easy to assume your design communicates clearly when you built it — usability testing removes that assumption fast.
Iterating based on majority feedback — not personal preference — was the most grounding part of the process. When three out of five users struggled with the same thing, the decision to change it wasn't a debate. That clarity made the iterations feel purposeful rather than reactive.
If I were to continue building trainON, I'd explore social accountability features (multiple users mentioned wanting a workout buddy), more robust progress tracking, and deeper muscle group filtering. The affinity mapping process was also something I'd use earlier in future projects — seeing patterns across all interviews at once surfaced insights that individual notes never could.
The design process works when you let users lead it. That's the part that stuck.
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