Case Study: Strava
Week 3 – IronHack UX/UI Bootcamp
After my first two intense (and interesting!) group projects at IronHack UX/UI Bootcamp, I‘ve been asked to add a new feature based on a colleague's suggestion for an app I wasn’t particularly familiar with: Strava.
In the next case study, I will analyze the process and show the steps for the 5 days design thinking sprint to add a new feature to the app concerning Nutrition & Self-Care.
The Brief
After an initial draft from a wide pool of proposals, I received my colleague’s Carlos Groth feature implementation idea.
As a committed athlete and daily user of this app, he provided me with the following statement:
Add a new feature to the app suggesting what & when you should eat when you plan to do a hard workout.
Fitness and diet go hand in hand,
the current app only focuses on exercise and not on nutrition.
Discover
Strava is Swedish for “strive”.
Strive (verb)
To make great efforts to achieve or obtain something.
The company founded in 2009 by Mark Gainey & Michael Horvath is based in San Francisco, California.
Offering both website and mobile service for tracking human exercise, it stands out from other competitors for a strong social network feature and an extremely dedicated user-base.
I began to feel intrigued!
Competitors & Market Offer
Surprisingly, analyzing several competitors and alternatives to Strava (Freeletics, 8fit, Adidas Running, C25K to name a few), I realized some key facts helped me in understand further the problems and the issue that Carlos was talking about.
- Training-focused apps are mostly missing reliable nutrition info and functions.
- Nutrition-focused apps are missing extended training functions.
- The challenges & goals proposed are mostly based on achieving better results and scores but without any mention of the effects of a harder workout and how to avoid related issues.
The User-Base: Dedicated and Passionate Athletes
Here I encountered my first blocker.
Not being really part (FYI, I’m not the most active person!) of the training/workout culture, I struggled initially to organize any quantitative research process.
Luckily, both Strava guidelines and the web provided me with useful and interesting data on which I based my Qualitative Research.
In particular, to mention one of the official Strava guidelines that really struck me and helped me to identify the users:
Strava is a community of people who are devoted to putting effort into their activities.
For them, being active is not a chore, it’s part of who they are.
It’s not just “working out,” it’s core to their life, for the long term, and has a strong purpose.
This allowed me to identify the main characteristics of Strava’s user.
- Dedicated & committed.
- Tech-savvy and up-to-date.
- Look for personalized & customizable functions.
- Train for longer distances.
- Need good preparation to achieve their goals.
- Like to challenge & compare through healthy competition.
- They are used to utilize third-party devices/app for specific measurements and features.
Define
Now, starting to feel more confident and knowing as much as I needed about the app, I wanted to investigate further, discover a new point of view and validate my assumptions.
I organized a limited number of long, extensive open conversations with active users.
Having small experience and not so much quantitative data, I wanted the interviewee to lead me and show me what the problems & the issue are before, during, and after training — and when those are directly connected to nutrition habits.
As I was expecting, one of the main issues is that it’s notably difficult to keep the focus and spontaneity of committed training without neglecting the preparation and come down when it comes to proper nutrition and self-care.
This was also backed up from one of the most meaningful articles that I found:
Good nutrition can enhance sporting performance.
[…]
A well-planned, nutritious diet should meet most of an athlete’s vitamin and mineral needs, and provide enough protein to promote muscle growth and repair. If carbohydrates inthe diet is restricted, a person’s ability to exercise is compromised because there is not enough glycogen kept in storage to fuel the body. This can result in a loss of protein (muscle) tissue, because the body will start to break down muscle tissue to meet its energy needs, and may increase the risk of infections and illness.
[…]
It is important to start your intake early in exercise and to consume regular amounts throughout the exercise period.It is important to start your intake early in exercise and to consume regular amounts throughout the exercise period.
(https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/HealthyLiving/sporting-performance-and-food)
Hence, the problem statement that guided me through my Ideate part:
Committed athletes need a non-intrusive and personalizable in-app function that allows them to focus on their activity but also remind them to take care of themselves before, during and after training.
Ideate
The problem was well defined at this point:
How might we integrate a non-intrusive and personalisable
reminder system for before, during and after the training?
So, I started brainstorming and creating ideas to analyse —here most relevant ones:
- Feed Screen
Blog entries and nutrition-related challenges - Nutritional Checklist / Record Screen
Pre-training clear and essential checklist, including the possibility of third-party info. - Take a break! / Timer Screen
Pop-up reminder for taking breaks and assume nutrients promptly — personalisable in the Record Screen. - General
Implement an option to receive nutritional data and suggestions from devices and apps.
The User-Flow
The registered user access the Record Screen, double-check in Setting if the Sensors are connected set up their preferences for Breaks Alerts and if everything is ready on the Nutrition Checklist — press START and start running!
Why Run?
The app offers around 20 types of sport — for this design sprint, I analyzed the RUN part since it tends to be slightly more spontaneous and preparation is often overlooked.
Hi-Fi Wireflows & Prototype
Almost there!
I finally started working on my favorite part of this Design Sprint!
With really solid and inspiring insights to support me, I felt it was definitely the moment to finalize this process and create the Hi-Fi version of the solution.
I created first a Wireflow, using the screens created in Figma to clarify the process and show all the new implementations.
In action!
As you can see, the solution expands the functions of the main flow of the app.
It includes nutritional suggestions and encourages interactions with the related device.
Also, the Break pop-ups are deeply customizable and appear in precise moments of the training — the simple gesture required to close them it’s randomised, requiring those few seconds of attention without sacrificing the flow and concentration of the athlete.
Key Learnings
- How realised how can be important extensive early testing and iteration.
- Importance of clear, unobtrusive, and accessible interactions.
- Importance of being able to interview a relevant user base when defining and brainstorming solutions.
- Consulting brand & business guidelines to have a clear idea and direction for UI.
- Atomic Design can be a wonderful tool for reckless messy creatives (like me!).
- Design Thinking has a precise logic and order — but the timeline sometimes overlays and mix (real fun!).
- Lastly, know when to stop, because done is more than perfect!
Next Steps
Due to the length of this Design Sprint, I couldn’t analyse and design all the brainstormed solutions.
Nonetheless, in case to continue this project, the next steps would definitely be:
- Improve interfacing with third-party devices/apps
Making the data gathered by external sources, more accessible and actually useful.
Reliable data are really important to athletes!
- Implement Nutrition Functions in the Feed Section
The challenging next step will be to integrate this new nutritional function into the social part of this app.
- Path Preparation and more extended data.
When we’re browsing between the other users’ paths, we might receive information on the nutritional/energy/calories effort required — to prepare the athletes at their best!
Thank you!
That’s it so far!
I’m still halfway through the UX/UI Bootcamp at Ironhack Berlin, and this function implementation for Strava has been one of the most gratifying projects I worked on at this point!
Hope you enjoyed it as well, and let me know what you think about this Case Study! :)
