• Project Proposal

     

                                                             Problem

     

    Fitness tracker apps and their problems (Samsung Health as example).

    Samsung health is one of the famous and worldwide activity tracker apps with more than a Billion installations in Android devices, the main purpose of Samsung Health is to provide a way for its users to track their activities in order to have a healthy and balanced lifestyle, which in a return will reflect on the societies by encouraging people to exercise and maintain a healthy life, but there is a problem with this kind of apps. Let's take a look at the following two figures: 1 billion (vs) 11 million.

    These two figures are incomparable right? The first number is for how many people have Samsung Health in their devices, while the other number is for the daily active users.

     

    What is the problem? Why is there a huge difference between the people who have it but they don’t use it and who use it?

    The answer basically will be understood if we knew they are just activity tracking apps, which means they keep track of every single daily action you do, for instance walking into the grocery. Tracking people activities that are considered as a daily routine doesn’t actually motivate the people to exercise and here comes the real problem with fitness tracker apps.

    The main problem with this kind of apps isn’t with usability or the user interface design, it’s with the user experience itself.

    Lack of motivation is the main problem with these apps, since they really don’t provide ways to motivate and encourage their users to exercise since it automatically records the daily routines, so the user will not, in the end, be motivated  for instance to schedule a specific period in his day to walk for 30 minutes or to run for 30 minutes. There is a huge difference between recording daily routines and record on purpose actions such walk for 30 minutes every day.


    lack of enhancing sociability, humans are inherently social they like to do activities in groups, Samsung Health does provide you a way to create friends inside the app but !!, there is no way to communicate with them via messages rather than voice calls.


                            




    Samsung Health does provide a limited way to send pre-written messages in 1:1 challenge, but the main purpose of these messages is just to notify the competitor.



    lack of engagement in Activities, no doubt that engaging in activities will make the user experience more enjoyable and add more fun to it, and that’s what Samsung Health does but!!, there are not many activities, as well as they, are repetitive activities. The only two activities that Samsung Health provides is Monthly challenges and 1:1 challenges.



    Proposed solution

     

    Firstly, let’s introduce our application and see it's main features:

    Spormap

    It is a mobile application that allows users to practice sports in specific places on the map (often parks) and some sports clubs that are contracted with and also enables you to interact with other users.

    The program needs to use the sensors of mobile devices to identify the person’s activity and the number of steps he takes daily.

    More features are added to the program when linked to a smartwatch that can identify calories burned, heart rate, and type of exercise.

     

    The program contains many features including:

    1. Obtaining people's health data such as, weight, age, mass, health status, and giving the best suitable sports based on it.
    2.  Medals are given to the most active users.
    3. The ability to communicate through chatting with the rest of the members in the vicinity and make challenges with them.
    4.  Giving a compulsory rest period after every 1 hour and not counting any activity for 5 minutes.
    5. The users are arranged and sorted according to the most active.
    6. The sorting is according to two types:
    Type1: sorting is resetting daily at two o'clock at midnight.
    Type 2: fixed levels for the most active users.

     

    Users are expected to do the following:

    1.  Find the nearest sports areas supported by the program.
    2.  Determine the type of sport the user wants to practice.
    3. Seeing the statistics of the rest of the people in the area and want to surpass them and achieve higher levels.
    4. Press the start button and start exercising.
    5. Getting a compulsory rest for 5 minutes after 1-hour exercising so that no one is harmed by strenuous exercise in order to bypass the rest of the users in a way that harms the body. And also to check your achievement and find more friends in your area during the rest period.
    6. Chat and contact with people at his/her area and can ask them to make challenges.
    7. The person achieves high levels and earn medals and collect prizes based on the sporting activity he performed.
    8. See other people's levels in the area such as Malaysia - Johor - Skudai - UTM University, so that they become motivated to achieve the first positions in a small area and then reach larger areas.


    Our application is basically created to solve the 3 problems mentioned before.


    1-      Lack of motivation

    In order to solve the Lack of motivation problem, we designed our program and made it as stimulating as possible, as it is possible to create challenges and see ratings not only with friends but with all the people in the area where the person is.

    Not only that, but rewards are obtained just like PokemonGo, but this time you must perform the required exercises to obtain them and then the prize will be waiting for you in an area of 100 meters and you must go to it to collect it.
    A few rare prizes contain a coupon that allows you to enter a gym for a whole day for free.

     

    2-      Lack of enhancing sociability

    We don't want users to only communicate remotely, this time we're going to break the saying (technology separates us).

    Users must meet in real life in places specified by the program in order to perform exercises and obtain points and medals, as no activity outside the supported areas, is counted.

     

    3-      Lack of Engagement

    We expect all people to participate in the application, and in order to motivate them to participate more, some rare prizes will be allocated, as mentioned previously. Also, a day of the week will be devoted to gathering the largest crowd to participate, and the largest number of rare prizes will be given on that day (often Friday or Saturday depending on the state's vacation system)

    * Rare prizes give coupons that allow a person to enter a club for a day for free, and some very rare prizes give a subscription to people for more than a month.

    More explanation and details on how these prizes will be funded can be found in the financial part at the end of the report.

    ·


    Target Users

     

    3 of the target users can benefit from our application.

     

    1-      Gyms:

    They can be considered as one of the biggest beneficiaries, as some gyms will be contracted with to add their locations to our App, thus attracting the largest number of costumers and reviving the sports club market, it is worth noting that the relationship with the gyms will be beneficial to both parties as we will collect a commission from them and take coupons for free entry and use them as prizes.

     

    2-      Athletes:

    Now they can practice sports in designated places and with people who share the same interest without the need to go to the gym. They will be able to meet new people every day and motivate each other, make challenges, score bigger points ... and so on.

     

    3-      Obese people

    The Application will ask about health data such as weight, height, and chronic diseases. And based on it, it will suggest the best sports activities for those suffering from obesity to help them in the best possible way and motivate them to continue.

     

     

    Many target users can also benefit from our program, even those just looking for fun and new relationships. 



    Financing

     

    This is an extra section to show how we are going to finance our application.

     

    As mentioned before, we have allocated some prices that give free entry, or discounts to some gyms, in order to finance this and also our app, the following method will be followed:

    Our application will be worldwide and we will contract with many gyms so that we add the gym location to the areas supported by our program so that we bring them many customers and thus we collect a certain value from the subscription contract for customers who came through us in addition to coupons that allow non-subscribers for free access to the gym, where a person can try the club and may participate in it.

    In order to organize this part, an advertisements page will be allocated in our application, where the user can pay the gym subscription fees through our App, and the amount will be transferred to them by us after calculating our commission.

     

    Areas supported by our program are the areas where the activity of the user will be counted, where no activity is counted outside these areas (gyms, parks, beaches…etc.).

     

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