The Shepherd App is a comprehensive wellness platform that provides personalized fitness and nutrition guidance customized to each user's goals, whether they are beginners or competitive athletes. The app connects users with certified coaches who offer bespoke one-on-one coaching to ensure accountability and motivation for optimal health.
Shepherd's unique all-in-one solution addresses the challenges faced by health-conscious individuals in achieving their fitness and nutrition goals.
The platform offers personalized coaching from certified experts, comprehensive progress tracking, and robust accountability through regular check-ins.
Supported by a vibrant community, users receive bespoke guidance tailored to their needs, fostering engagement and satisfaction.
By integrating personalized coaching, real-time progress monitoring, and community support, Shepherd effectively empowers users to accomplish their health goals, with success measured by user retention and sustained engagement.
"How can we design an app that seamlessly combines personalized coaching, progress tracking, accountability, and community support to help individuals achieve their fitness and nutrition goals?"
In this video, I will walk you through Shepherd's main features: booking a coaching session, completing a new client questionnaire, beginning a workout, and the simple onboarding journey.
There is a market gap for a digital platform that consolidates personalized coaching, comprehensive progress tracking, accountability mechanisms, and community support, offering health-conscious individuals a holistic approach to achieving their fitness and nutrition goals.
An integrated approach to fitness and nutrition is crucial in today's dynamic health and wellness landscape. Many people, like Alex, struggle with managing multiple apps for workouts and meals, highlighting the need for a single, comprehensive solution in the market.
The Shepherd app addresses this need by offering an all-in-one platform with personalized coaching, progress tracking, and community support. Shepherd guides users toward better health, living up to its name by leading them to improved outcomes. It provides direction, support, and a community to motivate and connect users.
By addressing market gaps and empowering users through an integrated and personalized approach, Shepherd transforms personal wellness and helps individuals achieve their best selves.
Let's conduct a detailed analysis of the insights we've gathered from our in-depth research on each of our competitors.Trivida Company Profile
Trivida is a leading healthcare provider in functional medicine, specializing in personalized care across five core areas: nutrition, hormones, stress, detoxification, and mobility/exercise.
They offer comprehensive treatment plans targeting root health issues through thorough testing and a collaborative approach.
By blending traditional Western medicine with innovative functional techniques, Trivida develops effective solutions and empowers patients with educational resources and practical tools for long-term health.
Their holistic patient care approach and commitment to setting new standards distinguish them as leaders in the functional medicine field.
SonderMind simplifies therapy by connecting clients with suitable mental health professionals through a personalized matching system that considers individual needs and insurance coverage.
Their user-friendly platform streamlines the therapist-finding process, enhancing accessibility. SonderMind extends its reach by partnering with employers, healthcare providers, and insurance companies, promoting well-being and reducing therapy stigma.
This comprehensive approach improves mental health care access and establishes SonderMind as an industry leader in fostering openness around mental health.
I conducted a UX Competitive Analysis on Trivida Functional Medicine to learn from their healthcare services, which align closely with my app's offerings. Although they have an app, it doesn't fully represent their service quality and brand image. I aim to improve progress tracking, habit formation, and resource sharing for better app operation and success.
After completing competitive analyses, I validated the findings through surveys, interviews, affinity mapping, and card sorting. I used Optimal Workshop, Google Forms, and my personal social media accounts to carry out these tasks.
In addition to using Google Forms to conduct surveys, I reached out to four people in my local network and asked if they would be willing to participate in remote or in-person interviews. We met both in person and virtually, and I gained deeper insights into my app design by brainstorming ideas with them and receiving valuable feedback.
To understand health-conscious individuals, I conducted a Google Forms survey focusing on essential features, privacy concerns, and daily routines.
Key findings revealed a strong interest in a holistic health app, emphasizing educational content, workout routines, personalized coaching, and a supportive community.
Participants prioritized health and fitness, recognizing the importance of proactive well-being management. However, they expressed privacy concerns, seeking assurance that their personal information would remain secure.
After thoroughly analyzing the extensive data, I have identified recurring patterns and extracted crucial insights. These findings will inform design decisions and enhance the overall user experience.
I conducted user interviews both in person and remotely. The participants ranged from their late 20s to late 30s, all living throughout the United States and having various professional backgrounds.
let's take a closer look!
Before I create wireframes, I empathize with users to understand their needs and behaviors.
I use user stories, scenarios, and task flows to map their journeys and identify challenges. Engaging in online social media and forums gives me genuine insights into user emotions and expectations. This enriches my research and helps me create detailed personas crucial for user flows and journey maps.
My user-centered approach ensures that the design solutions I come up with are innovative and aligned with real user needs, creating a solid foundation for successful application development.
exploring and understanding our users
This section will explore how users engage with the product to pinpoint pain points and areas for enhancing the application.
The insights I gathered during my research helped me create these detailed personas.
The tech-savvy, health-conscious professional seeking a seamless all-in-one app to efficiently manage fitness and health while prioritizing privacy and work-life balance.
A privacy-conscious fitness enthusiast seeking a comprehensive app to seamlessly integrate exercise, nutrition, and mental health tracking, while fostering accountability and progress.
When designing my application, I prioritized user-friendly interactions to enhance the experience.
Key features include a seamless interface for scheduling and joining coach meetings, an intuitive workout search and execution feature, and a user-friendly onboarding questionnaire to pair users with coaches.
Wireframes were designed to align with user needs, ensuring a cohesive, modern user experience.
Crafting with Empathy and Insight
Based on the research conducted, I will outline how to turn user needs and feedback into practical solutions. This involves implementing solutions, from design to testing, to ensure that each feature meets the user's needs and maintains a user-centered approach.
relevant Feature Hypothesis
During the initial stages of creating my application, I developed simple wireframes to establish how users would interact with the main features.
My main goal was to make it easy for users to schedule and join video sessions with coaches. I used familiar design elements to help users navigate the app with confidence. I also created a user-friendly interface for the workout feature, allowing users to find and complete workouts easily. The onboarding questionnaire was designed to efficiently gather personal information to match users with the right coach. These simple wireframes acted as a foundation, ensuring that the design remained user-focused as it progressed.
As I transitioned to mid-fidelity wireframes, the design became more refined, enabling more detailed usability tests.
These tests were essential in collecting feedback and gaining insights into user preferences and behaviors. By analyzing this feedback, I was able to fine-tune the app's design, enhancing its personalized feel and ensuring it met users' unique needs.
The mid-fidelity wireframes captured a more polished version of the app, reflecting the iterative process of incorporating user feedback to create a cohesive and engaging experience.
This stage was crucial in aligning the application's features with the expectations and desires of its users, paving the way for a successful and user-friendly final product.
The objective is to collect user feedback to evaluate the prototype's functionality and design choices. The goal is to understand user navigation, identify usability issues, and gather insights to enhance app efficiency and user experience.
Imagine embarking on a life-changing fitness journey with a dedicated, certified coach committed to helping you achieve your goals. If you are new to digital fitness apps, you might feel uncertain about choosing the right coach, but you can recognize the potential value they can bring.
To improve your experience, a simple onboarding process involves a detailed questionnaire about your information, goals, and preferences. Using your answers, the app matches you with the most suitable coach for a customized fitness and nutrition plan.
Imagine settling into a comfortable space for your weekly virtual coaching session with your dedicated coach.
As the session begins, you're warmly greeted, setting a positive tone. Your coach reviews your past week's progress, celebrating achievements and providing constructive feedback. You discuss short-term and long-term goals, address concerns, and receive personalized advice. You brainstorm and refine objectives, creating a detailed task list for the upcoming week that includes workout schedules and nutrition plans.
Imagine starting your day by choosing the perfect workout. You open your fitness app and explore various on-demand options customized for different fitness levels and goals.
After considering your mood and energy level, you opt for the featured "Workout of the Day," which offers a well-rounded combination of cardio, strength, and flexibility exercises. The "Workout of the Day" is prominently displayed in the workouts tab and accessed via the bottom navigation bar.
After conducting usability testing and synthesizing the data, I organized the results using an affinity map. I then employed a rainbow spreadsheet to categorize and prioritize user experience issues by documenting observations, identifying patterns, and rating their severity. Errors were rated based on Jakob Nielsen’s severity scale, allowing me to prioritize the most critical usability issues effectively.
Post-usability testing, I used affinity maps to organize feedback and rated errors with Nielsen's Severity Scale, logging them in a Google Sheet for prioritization.
A preference test with 11 participants on Usabilityhub.com assessed user understanding and visual appeal. These insights drove a complete reimagining of Shepherd's UI, enhancing its intuitiveness and attractiveness.
The preference test aimed to evaluate how well users understand and perceive the designs and how visually appealing they find them. The test involved 11 participants.
The objective of the test was to determine which of the two designs was preferred by the participants. One of the designs emphasized a more detailed layout with individual buttons and icons that directed the user to continue their sign-in process using various social media accounts.
On the other hand, the other design provided fewer instructions. It relied more on intuitive reasoning from the user to know that the provided icons offered the option to continue with their sign-in process without giving any context.
The participants agreed that option B was the superior layout due to its simplicity, directness, and accessibility of the sign-in icons.
Shepherd began its journey as "Sentinel," a name reflecting its role as a guiding guardian in wellness. However, user feedback revealed that "Sentinel" felt too formal, prompting a shift to "Shepherd," symbolizing trust and support.
The app's vibrant design initially clashed with its tranquil mission, leading to a refined, blue-centered palette. Blue was chosen to embody trust, calmness, and reliability, aligning with Shepherd's core values of trustworthiness, professionalism, and strength.
Evolving from basic tracking to a holistic wellness platform, Shepherd empowers users with personalized fitness and nutrition solutions supported by certified coaches. This approach fosters accountability, motivation, and sustainable results, helping users achieve their health goals in a supportive environment.
The Shepherd community embodies trustworthiness, professionalism, friendliness, personal excellence, and strength.
At Shepherd, our goal is to empower individuals to achieve optimal health through personalized fitness and nutrition solutions. With certified coaches providing expert guidance and tailored programs, we foster accountability, motivation, and sustainable results. Our supportive environment helps users thrive and reach their unique health goals.
These core values and objectives guided the visual design decisions for the application.
Design thrives by trusting the process and valuing user feedback. Iterative testing reveals insights that enhance designs, aligning them closely with user needs.
