Competitors research

Research regarding competitors within the healthy and active lifestyle market who have tried to create solutions to the same problem that I have proposed.

1. NHS Fitness Studio

Company: National Health Service (NHS)

URL: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-fitness-studio/?tabname=aerobic-exercise

Context:The National Health Service is the publicly funded health care system in England. They aim to give treatment, care and advice to citizens in regard to all types of health.

I have decided to research into the online website of the NHS and more specifically, the ‘fitness studio’. This online fitness studio contains video tutorials that people can follow along to and covers a huge variety of exercise types from aerobics to general strength and fitness. The videos are live tutorial sessions from professional instructors that have been recorded and uploaded for viewers to access whenever they like, with each video ranging from 10 to 45 minutes. The reason I have decided to look into this product is that video fitness tutorials are a more traditional sense of promoting a healthy lifestyle, and I want to see just how effective and motivational they are and draw upon the positives and negatives of this medium and gain inspiration for my own final product.

Positive learning:

• Website layout is very clear and easy to navigate
• Video tutorials vary in difficulty; take into consideration all abilities
• Videos are easy to follow and accommodate to all ages
• Opening page states how each category will improve physical/mental health

There are a lot of positives regarding the NHS Fitness Studio website, with regards to my own product I would like to incorporate the easy and clear navigation formatting. Alongside this, I like that on the first page the physical/mental health benefits are stated; I think this gives a motivation push to an audience as it focuses on the positives as opposed to the negatives and I would like to incorporate this element into my final idea.

Negative Learning:

• No way to track the impact of the exercises e.g. calorie loss
• Videos are quite simplistic, could lead to disengagement
• Pages with videos on are very simplistic in design; lack in aesthetic and are not visually eye catching

Despite the website having a lot of positives in the educational formatting, there are some negatives in the aesthetics. The website is clear and concise which is appealing, however the video pages themselves are generally quite plain and simplistic which is slightly boring and fails in getting an audience to be interested in reading the text below the video. In my own product I would like the layout to be more engaging and encourage viewers to read any textual information, or find a more interesting way to put this information across. Alongside this, there is no determinant that shows the impact of doing the exercise e.g. average calorie loss, I think this is an important element as it is what would motivate people to do the exercise as they would be able to see the physical impact it is going to have.

 

2. My Fitness Pal

App name: ‘My Fitness Pal’

URL: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/

Context: My Fitness Pal is a free smartphone app and website that tracks diet and exercise in order to determine the most effective calorie intake for the individual.The company believes that the most effective way to lose weight and stay healthy is to simply track and journal food intake and exercise and base average intake on that data.

I decided to look into this website/app as creating a media product that tracks information is the route I would like to take, so too see how effective this product is will help me in developing my own. Despite having the same basic intention as my proposal but aimed at a larger target audience, this app seems to be more focused on the exercise aspect as opposed to physical activity; so I will take this factor into consideration.

Positive learning:

• Customization – the user inputs all their information, making it specific and personal to them
• Gives advice based on the individuals normal lifestyle – adapts and improvises as opposed to completely changing it
• Recommends other apps in the same category that will help
• Food, exercise, blog, community and shop – engaging amount of variety within the app/website

This product has a large array of positives about it that I hope to incorporate into my own product; I like the personal aspect in that an individual gets to input all their data and have tracking that is very specific to them e.g. before and after weight – if I was to create my own app then I would like to incorporate this idea into my own in order to make it more engaging and motivational to the individual. I also like that the app accommodates to different lifestyles and gives its advice based on that, I could incorporate this into my own app e.g. offering advice on student friendly activities and exercise suggestions. The overall notion of having an app that constantly tracks data is something that appeals to me as a whole as I think it is an effective way of engaging an individual as well as educating them on the benefits of the lifestyle and activities that they are carrying out as they can monitor their progress.

Negative learning

• The formatting of the app seems quite cluttering and overwhelming; a huge amount of text regarding different subjects
• The colour scheme is not the most aesthetically pleasing

Overall, there was a huge amount of positives from the My Fitness Pal website and app in terms of functionality and how it goes about achieving its aims, however – I personally find their are some flaws in the overall layout of this product visually. There is a huge amount of information needing to be delivered from this app, and the way it is laid out in copious amounts of text does not look appealing – in my own product I would try to avoid doing this and take a more visual approach with the aid of diagrams and graphics in order to get more information across as I believe this would be more engaging to a user – especially within my target audience of students. I also would choose to incorporate a brighter and bolder colour scheme into my design as I think the colours in this product are slightly dull and not as visually pleasing, which can disengage an audience as they want something that stands out and gives the connotations of positive energy and power.

 

3.Wii Fit

Brand/Name: Nintendo: Nintendo Wii Fit

Context: Nintendo platform created the Wii Fit in order to encourage families to engage in more exercise; to do this they created an interactive game where people would participate in a whole variety of engaging activities and sports games on the wii console and consequently their activity levels would allow them to lose weight in a gamified, competitive and fun way. Additional to this, they also developed the ‘Wii Fit Board’ this was essentially a scale that doubled up as an interactive board that individuals could stand on while doing activities to allow the software to monitor their weight (and weight loss) as well as their movement in games. This data would then be uploaded to the system to the individuals avatar where they could track data input overtime and set weight goals.

I have chosen to research into this product as it was a very popular and effective way that people engaged in exercise as a social activity, and at the same time were able to track and monitor their weight loss overtime – so they could see the impact the weight loss was having in a fun way. The gamification element of having competitive games and sports is also really interesting as a research topic as it was a unique style that appealed to all life stages in the family home.

 Positive learning:

• Uses gamification in order to effectively engage audience in doing exercise – it is made as a fun, social activity in the family home
• Effective way of tracking weight gain and loss; accessible graphs and data log
• Individuals can set BMI goals – makes it personal
• Competitive element gives it another level of engagement
• Bright visual graphics alongside audio; immersive

The Wii Fit has many positives that make it an appealing way of engaging in exercise; it includes bright aesthetics and graphics to create an immersive experience and allows individuals to partake in a whole host of activities that will benefit them in a variety of different ways. Giving an audience a variety of suggested ways to engage in exercise is something I would like to apply to my own product as it keeps them engaged for extensive periods of time as opposed to doing the same activity all the time. I also think the Wii Fit has a good way of storing data and makes it easily accessible for users to access, whilst also giving them the option to set goals; I would like to incorporate tdea of accesible data into my own product as it allows people to monitor progress and I like the idea of being able to set weight loss goals as it will give people more motivation to carry on engaging in activities.

Negative Learning:

• Requires a lot of expensive components; Wii console, Wii Fit board and the game itself
• Lack of realism; the avatars are cartoons and therefore disperse the illusion of it being realistic
• The game can be quite harsh in its approach; e.g. if someone is overweight then they make there is an insert of the avatar turning obese – almost humiliating?
• Would be nice to see specific benefits of each activity e.g. running games will help cardio etc.

While the Wii Fit is undeniably successful in meeting its outcomes, I think the presentation style does have some flaws; the avatars are very unrealistic and can compromise how effective people view activities and reflections to be. If i were to include an avatar within my own product I would try to make it more realistic in order to make it more aesthetically pleasing and relatable to users and they can get a firmer idea of the benefits exercise is having. I think the game lacks in showing the specific benefits of each activity, as drawn upon above, I think by doing this individuals could become more educated on what activities are going to be most beneficial to them and make sure to engage in a wide variety – therefore i would incorporate this into my own product when trying to engage users in the benefits of exercise.

 

What I will do next; The final part of my secondary research is looking into ‘inspirational’ sources that may influence my final product in terms of not only functionality but also aesthetically and emotionally.