David Betz

On-boarding & Interaction Design for Live & On-demand Streaming Dance Fitness Classes

How might we improve users first and continuing interactions with the product to increase new user subscriptions and current user retention?

— CATEGORIES

UX Research

UX Design


— METHODS

Team Project. Product research, heuristic evaluation, user interviews, research synthesis, created and tested wireframes and prototypes


— TOOLS

Sketch

Adobe Illustrator

Zeplin

InVision




PROBLEM: The landscape for digital online fitness is ever growing and ever evolving. Even though users have access to these platforms there is a strong disconnect between that of the online classes and those of the in-studio community aspect. How might we build a better sense of community and engagement for the users of WollenDance to retain current users while encouraging new users to onboard?




SOLUTION: WollenDance Feature Enhancements are new elements on the on-demand dance fitness class platform. Based on the user's regular exercise habits, the platform will provide an engaging community aspect to help the user better engage with both the instructors and fellow users through out their experience with the product. 

Conception

Jaimee Dunning has been dancing for 20 years and opened a studio, DanceVibes, in San Bruno, CA in 2017.


Classes became so popular that Jaimee couldn’t meet the demand; she was forced to turn customers away.


Qin Hong, a loyal customer and IT consultant, visited over 100 fitness studios across the US.


Instructors were consistently posting low-quality video recordings on Youtube and Vimeo which made it hard for dancers to follow along.



Their Challenge

•3,500 users

•76% female

•Over 60% between ages of 25 – 44 

•20% of visitors to WollenDance sign up for a free trial

•Only 10% of users are paying customers, and vast majority of those are people who discovered WollenDance after taking a class in a partner studio in person first


At $14.99/month to $24.99/year, users have affordable access to great dance fitness instruction from around the country.

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Scaling of WD drives down CAC, and increases profitability of each class produced.

Competitive Landscape

Heuristic

Evaluation

To begin the I.A. process, we visited the existing WollenDance website to identify opportunity areas. We were primarily looking to understand the site’s organization, labeling, navigation, and search functionality.

What WD does well


  • • Fun, energetic color scheme
  • • Large countdown is informative and generates excitement among users
  • • Value proposition is clear; what WD  does, stats about offering
  • • Clear calls to action: start trial, find    livestream classes

• Pricing for subscriptions is clear


Areas for improvement


  • • Unclear filtering/description of class prior to actually viewing the video
  • • Difficulty (dance moves or fitness?)
  • • Inconsistent naming (beginner vs. easy, intermediate/advanced vs. hard)
  • • Type of dancing
  • • Varies greatly by studio
  • • User profile is lacking information and doesn’t curate the experience for each user
  • • Opportunity to inform the user about his/her progress and performance
  • • Leaves burden on user to find future workout videos they’ll enjoy

• Calories is sole measurement and isn’t believable as it appears now


Generative User Research

We first started our research project by conducting generative research about exercise and fitness motivation. We interviewed users who were interested in exercise to understand their habits, thoughts, and motivations around exercise. Additionally, we wanted to understand their thoughts about streaming technology apps.

Research Insights

  1. Variety / Customization: Users value a variety of workout types to avoid monotony; they particularly enjoy personalized workouts 


  1. Location: The energy of studio surroundings (music, lighting, environment), the structure provided by an instructor, and being a part of a welcoming fitness community (familiar faces, motivation from others) are important to users’ workout success away from home.
  2. However, when constrained by time, weather, or travel, streaming workouts at home is a great alternative
  3. While users enjoy working out at studios, taking in-person classes consistently is expensive and requires adherence to a rigid class schedule


  1. Sentiment: Users want to feel a sense of accomplishment after a workout. 
  2. Dance Enthusiasts: These users are passionate that dance is a fantastic workout and enjoy performing.
  3. Beginner Dancers: These users feel that dancing can be an effective workout, but are intimidated by dancing and felt self-conscious. While these users love dancing for fun (i.e. at weddings, out at night), it isn’t the first thing that comes to mind as a “workout”


  1. Goals: Setting goals and intentions keep users focused on completing the workout, especially when exercising alone.
  2. Fitness tracking technology ensures users are working hard and reminds users to stay active


Persona

Problem

Statement

•People are motivated and held accountable by structured group fitness classes, but don’t have endless time and money to attend.

•Mary enjoys dance classes as a form of exercise, but can’t do them consistently. 

•How might we help Mary dance more often to stay mentally and physically happy?



Evaluative

Product

Research

In addition to conducting generative user research about fitness motivation, we also interviewed current and previous WollenDance Users to understand more about their experiences with the dance streaming product.

The goal of this research was to understand tangible benefits and pain points experienced while using the WollenDance service.



Active Wollen Dance User – Research Insights

Behaviors:

  • WollenDance subscribers typically join the online service after being satisfied with a fun, lively in-person experience at their home studio.
  • WollenDance users enjoy dancing because it is a fun, judgment-free way to stay healthy.
  • Users typically use WollenDance at home when constrained by time or had low energy.
  • Users say they want to explore more videos; however, they typically default to the specific dance styles they are familiar with.


Sentiments:

  • WollenDance users particularly enjoy seeing their dance community from the comfort of their own home.
  • WollenDance users recognize the value of Live Streaming, but typically opt for On Demand classes due to timing or time zone constraints.


Product Improvements:

  • Users are frustrated by glitches and buffering. They feel especially frustrated because audio + visual synchronization is very important for a dance class.
  • Users stress the need for higher quality videos and better instructional angles; they want the instructor’s face to face the screen (not their back), and for the instructor to call out at-home users
  • Users love the dance music, but note the need for “cleaner” lyrics


Ideation

After understanding the competitive landscape and conducting research on fitness motivation + WollenDance’s existing product, we began ideating to help improve the user experience.

Prioritized Features

Research Driven Features

Design Studio

In an ideation approach our team moved on to a process of design studio. By sketching out ideas keeping in mind the users goals, needs, pain points and behaviors we were able to come to a clear and cohesive set of frames to proceed with the redesign of WollenDance’s platform.

Lo-Fi

Prototype

Testing

In prototyping we found several overlooked errors which were quickly caught an adapted for. We did this through rounds of usability testing and synthesizing the date from those tests.

Mid-Fi Screens

Mid-Fi

Usability

Testing

In testing the mid-fidelity screens having already gone through and adjusted for lo-fi issues we were quick to notice changes and make adjustments based on those findings to create the Hi-Fidelity // Product mock ups.

Hi-Fidelity Mockups

Recommended Next Steps

Based on user feedback, the root cause of frustration for WollenDance subscribers was with the content. Technical glitches, buffering, and instructors not engaging an at-home audience led to their frustration. For that reason, we recommend the following content improvements to improve the overall User Experience. 


  • •Engagement: WollenDance users stressed the need for more at-home engagement. 
  •      °Welcome: Instructors should address the at-home users to ensure they are engaged.
  •      °Angles: Instructors should face the screen (not have their back to the screen) and stay on stage the entire time.             Consider ways for other dancers to be visible on screen to improve engagement and the “community” vibe.
  •      °UX / Technical Additions: Consider breaking down the video so viewers can visually see break points between             songs; consider also adding mini instructional videos on the side to illustrate “how to” do certain moves.

  • •Video Quality: Consider improving video quality with wide-angle lenses and higher resolution cameras.
  1. •Buffering Solution: Buffering and audio/visual asynchrony was a main source of frustration. Given the critical importance of synchrony for dance fitness, investigate ways to improve video loading speeds, or give users the ability to download videos to their computer.