MyFitnessPal Redesign - Side Project

Project Overview

MyFitnessPal is a popular calorie tracking app that aims to help uses lead healthier lifestyles by allowing them to log their food, exercise and water intake each day.

To help teach myself a proper design process, I decided to redesign aspects of the app I thought could use some work. I applied user-centered design methods in user research, walkthroughs and prototyping to come to my final result.

Goal: Use the experience of the app to retain more users and create motivation for them to achieve their goals

Process

Research: I talked to short and long-term users to understand the pain points and benefits of the platform.

Concepting: I wireframed and sketched out potential solution to the problems I found from conducting user interviews.

Feedback: I showed my work to other experienced designers to understand what could work, and what didn't.

Mockups: Once I'd reached a solution I believed solved the problems I had found, I delved into designing the look and feel.

Prototyping: I created Keynote prototypes for quick demonstration of the flow and experience. I iterated these as I evolved the design to show the users I had spoken to.

Existing Design

The existing design (dated: October 2014), shown below features a news feed of personal and friends' activity, along with sponsored ads.

Findings from Research

  • 1. The current app only focuses on calorie intake goals, not exercise
  • 2. The goals you set during onboarding are lost in the core experience<
  • 3. Weight loss is personal, not social. Users don't like seeing ads and a news feed on their home screen.
  • 4. Most often, users visit the app to check how many calories they have left. Many users bulk add items at specific times during the day.

Suggested Solution

Learnings

When designing this, I neglected a key stakeholder: the business itself, its' investors and its employees. The sponsored ads that were included in the existing designs likely were a large source of income for the company. By removing these ads in my new designs, I removed this benefit to the company. In hindsight, I'd place these ads in places where they were more relevant. For example, using sponsored ads in the recipe section, or ads for weight trackers in the excercise tracking section would be much more effective, and still in keeping with providing real value to users.