The ideation
As we were the future users of the app, it was rather easy to jump into research and ideation. The rough idea of the app was as follows:
1. Home screen
At first the decision was to have one workout, with the option to edit it. Often the same workout is repeated, so it was clear that a CTA button to instantly start the same workout should be present.
In addition was important to see not only the time for the entire workout, but also for its parts, and in case that a change is necessary to be easily able to do so.
2. Edit workout
It would be common to edit more than one instant when editing the workout, therefore having all instances editable on one screen was the way to go. And sliders felt like the most convenient way to do so.
3. Countdown
As there are a few seconds needed from the time the "Start" button is pushed to the time we have put down the device and prepared for the workout, we added a simple countdown of 10 seconds. This is also when we decided that having a sound to indicate the last few seconds will also be beneficial (this was also what the majority of similar apps were also doing).
4. Exercise counter
This was a very important screen and priority was to make it visible from far away. After all the device would usually stay at the bare minimum a meter away. For that purpose, we decided to use the maximum size of the screen and indicate the progress not only with numbers, but also with a bold colour.
5. Rest counter
Similar to the "Exercise counter" we included the Rest counter, but to avoid confusion was important to visually look very different.
6. Workout complete
And the last screen needed was clearly the "Workout complete", and there were various ideas of how to emphasise on the accomplishment.
The Visual Identity
As HIIT workouts are well known for best way for burning the highest amount of calories, it wasn’t difficult to come up with “Burn” as the name of the app and a logo mark of a lightning to show the speedy nature of the workouts. The colouring too had to be bold, dynamic and energetic.
For the fonts, we decided to stick to Apple's SF Pro Display. The app was being built in Unity, far from being "Native", but we wanted it to look and feel Apple-like and the fonts surely contributed to this goal.
The first release
After a few trial and errors, the app's started to come into shape.
During testing we came up with the following improvements:
1. Being able to input the exercise names, so during workout being able to see exactly what you have to do.
2. Showing the next exercise, so being able to prepare mentally and physically for it.
3. Adding sounds for all counters - when exercise is about to start, and about to end.
Even if the app was not a "native" app, we were aiming at making it as "native" as possible - functionally and visually. It was a challenge.
Other ideas (not on first release)
During the developing of the app, more ideas for features and improvements came up. Some of them would've been relevant if the app was to be promoted to a wider audience and because this wasn't our initial goal, the features and improvements didn't make it to the implementation. Here are some of them:
Improving the engagement and satisfaction of completing a workout was to introduce different screens for different type of achievements.
Having a calendar of past activities can be a great feature for two reasons. One - gives you an overview of past workouts, obviously. Two - could motivate to do a workout, because that would create a repetition of what was done in the last days, week or month, in other words - helping build a routine.
Even further, being able to preschedule a workout, so you can receive reminders to mentally prepare you for it.
Sharing major achievements on Social Media can play a big role in popularising of the app among friends and like-minded people.
Summary
The app is available on the Apple store and Play store. (http://hyperurl.co/burn-hiit-trainer)
