My Role: UX Research & UX/UI Design • Project Duration: December 2021 (3 Weeks)
Early Research
In order to get a gauge for a quantity of diverse experiences, I sent out a survey where participants could remain anonymous. I received responses from 19 women from ages 25-41. Questions focused on their socio-economic backgrounds, their experiences growing up playing sports (or lack thereof), their self-esteem and development, and their perspectives/experiences on sports for their children (if they have them).
Then, I did a deep dive into scientific studies, statistics, and trends observed with sports, women, and self esteem.
What Science Tells Us
Evidence suggests that “when properly used, physical activity or sports in youth can provide positive benefits to physical self-esteem”… however, “used inappropriately they can have negative effects on self-esteem and motivation.”
“Adolescent athletes are especially vulnerable to developing disordered eating behaviors. Risk factors include participation in sports where weight and lean body type are important, high-intensity training, pressure from coaches, and training and dieting at an early age.”
“Research indicates that certain athletes, particularly those in sports that emphasize leanness to enhance performance or appearance (e.g., gymnastics, wrestling, figure skating, diving, and ballet), are at risk for eating disorders.”
Globally, women are less likely than men to get enough exercise: 57 percent of men ages 18 and over meet recommended aerobic activity levels, versus 49 percent of women. When it comes to the number of people who meet guidelines for both aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity, the gap widens.
Further marginalized groups have it even worse—in a recent study, young black women were the least likely group to report any physical activity, and given the discriminatory policies trans and nonbinary people face in sports and gym environments, experts suspect their exercise participation rates are even lower.
What the Users Told Us
Do you feel that participation in sports hurt or helped your self-esteem? Why?
“Helped that I gained confidence in what I could achieved, and created a support system/community. But also hurt specifically that I did competitive Tae Kwon Do and had to manage my weight to fit within a fight class. I learned unhealthy eating/cutting weight habits, had a negative mindset about my body image.”
“Hurt. Being in a bathing suit in front of young teenage boys was a point of ridicule.
“Helped and hurt. I worried so much about needing to be perfect, but I loved having fun being active.”
What difficulties do you face in helping your children play sports?
“I wouldn’t want kids until I am financially able to give them the opportunities I had to participate in sports.”
“A lot of it comes down to timing. Me and my husband both work full time, and we don’t have the flexibility to get up and go when needed.”
“I want her to be able to focus on her performance, not her body or how she looks to others.”
Pain Points
Issue #1: Sports can be very expensive in the short and long-term.
Issue #2: Time is of the essence; there is no quick way to research, find, and book coaching.
Issue #3: Depending on the type of sport, exposure may hurt girls’ self-esteem, not help them.
Issue #4: If parents are looking for strength-focused (not body-focused) sports for their daughters, where would they search for this niche?
Given the discoveries from the research process, I moved forward with an application that would focus on connecting young girls exclusively with strength sport programs, mental health resources, and related events.
As a weightlifter who has played sports her whole life, I wanted to ensure I wasn’t creating a biased solution for girls in sport. Using the qualitative data gathered during the research process, I created two personas that would serve as a guide for me to keep the design process user-centered since they had varying goals and needs.
Amira is a data analyst and Crossfitter who grew up playing sports that hurt her self-esteem, and hopes to find a strength-centered program for her daughters to participate in.
Sarita is a small business owner who cannot afford the time or cost of her daughters’ sports programs, but wants to find a way for them to participate as she never had the choice.
The Current Market
With Fempower being a hypothetical non-profit, I would consider other non-profits with similar goals to be colleagues instead of competitors, but I like to compare all the same. I chose to focus on a few key categories that lined up with my mission and vision.
Design and Ideation
For the low-fidelity wireframes, priorities were:
A home page with access to the main flows
Coaching, group, and event booking
An about us + resources page
Search capabilities
Low-Fidelity Usability Study: Findings
Booking: Homepage sections should go directly to booking pages, unless language is added to specify that it takes user to a “learn more” page about that topic.
Verbiage: Language should be changed on major sections of the homepage, as the differences don’t seem obvious. Combining sections will make the product more intuitive.
Search: The searching is a little bit “much.” Going back and forth to search for different categories (coaching, events, groups) is not an intuitive experience. Participants wanted the search to be more inclusive and easy to toggle between the options.
Improvements & High-Fidelity Iterations
The first pain point to solve was the homepage and improve the user flow for each navigation item (events, coaching, resources). I adjusted the verbiage and made sure each of these sections were clear in their naming conventions.
A similar pain point brought to my attention was that looking at the previous verbiage, you would assume you are going to a page to book, not to ‘learn more.’ As a result of this, I made sure the booking was readily available upon the first page of each section.
The last thing that needed adjustment was the searching functionality. 4/5 of our usability study participants noted they would like the option to toggle between the different types of search results once you’ve pressed ‘search', and by proxy narrow down the results to be more specific.
I moved from a full search results page to three sliding tabs for each section of searchable options.
Another comment, though not a P0 change, was actually related to logistics of the non-profit itself. Initially, I had set up a financial resources page that functioned as an application for financial aid. This did not end up making sense in the grand scheme of the non-profit’s mission, so I removed that in favor of a donation flow that you can access from the homepage. It is of great importance to note that the donation flow of the application is not highly prominent, but on the website is a main function.
Logo, Brand Identity & Design System
Fe (Iron) is the most abundant element in the world, and is crucial for human development and strength. While black is considered “masculine” and bright colors are considered “feminine,” I wanted to remind girls that there is no such thing - so I decided to go full on dark-mode with pops of color.
Explore The Final Mobile Application
From Mobile to Website
The first step in creating Fempower’s responsive website was mapping out how our key focuses differ from the mobile application, and how that would be presented in navigation.
Connecting with Our Audience
I wanted our website to focus on storytelling, so users can:
Learn the “why”
Read user stories
Make donations
Contact us
Versus the focuses on the mobile application:
Searching, scheduling/booking
Calendar usage (for on-the-go + schedule management)
Messaging (with coaches, and other parents)
Learning the Why + User Stories
I wanted the “about us” page and “resources” page to encompass a holistic view of why Fempower exists, and for users to keep the real goals of the association in mind. While both of these pages exist on the mobile application, they do contain a bit of additional information in this format, including pages for athletes and articles.
Donations + Contact Us
Donating is an indelible part of non-profits; it’s at the core of the majority of funding that helps an organization stay afloat. To keep this top-of-mind, there Donate is included in the navigation for the website. For this purpose, I also have featured signature partners on appropriate pages - as would be required should the company gain sponsors who donate for visibility.
Contact Us (underneath the About Us navigation) is also another way of ensuring that users and contributors can also get in touch with us and make this organization about how we can work together instead of separately.
See the Final Product on Desktop
For the Future
This is easily my favorite project yet, and it is a very gentle (but loud) reminder that what I am passionate about at my core is creating products that help people. Adding convenience is merely sprinkles on top. I hope to launch this product one day.