Why people weren’t starting workouts
At the end of 2024, the product had two clear issues. Very few free users were becoming paid users, and people who did pay were not coming back often. In simple terms, people were downloading the app, opening it a few times, and leaving.
Before jumping into redesigns, I needed to understand why.
My role: As the Senior UX/UI Designer on this project, I led the design work from start to finish. I conducted user research, analyzed feedback, framed the problem, created sketches and wireframes, and proposed solutions for faster workout discovery and improved navigation. I collaborated with PMs and engineers to ensure changes were feasible and aligned with business goals.
I started by “listening” to users. I looked at user feedback we already had from App Store reviews, post-workout surveys, “end workout early” surveys, and subscription cancellation surveys.
Feedback from different sources showed the same pattern.
I grouped everything into themes and asked one simple question: What is making people stop using the app?
When everything was grouped together, a clear pattern showed up. People were not saying the workouts were bad or the trainers were bad. They were saying things like:
This feedback came from different devices, experience levels, and use cases... but it pointed to the same problems:
The app worked like a big video library. That sounds fine, but in practice it meant too many options, too much browsing, and too much thinking before starting. For a fitness app, that’s a problem. If users have to think too much before a workout, they often don’t work out at all.
That made our 2025 goal very clear. We needed to help users start their first workout faster, make it easier for them to come back regularly, and reduce the pressure of choosing from thousands of options every time.
At the same time, there were clear constraints. The app had grown a lot over the years and couldn’t be rebuilt from scratch. There wasn’t budget or time for a full redesign, and any changes had to work with existing screens and systems. Because of this, the goal wasn’t to make a perfect new app. It was to make improvements without breaking what already existed.
User needs vs. stakeholder needs.
I brainstormed solutions for each major problem area. Focusing on ideas that could ship faster, required smaller changes, and had the biggest impact on helping users start a workout.
Highlighting all my ideas made it easier for non-product stakeholders to understand why some changes mattered more than others.
The sketches, ideas, and final report helped my team get approval to:
Each approved change has its own research, testing, and results, which I cover separately in the following chapters.