How to make exercise a habit?
Gymondo is a sports and wellbeing app, targeting mainly women including pregnant women and new-moms.
How can we help Gymondo users turn exercising with the app into a habit? The aim was twofold: improve user results & satisfaction as well as increase re-subscription rates.
- Strategic feature plan
- Concept & design of initial features
- Increased weekly streaks through the designed features, which is linked to a higher chance of resubscription.
Desktop Research
I reviewed scientific studies on habit formation and analyzed how other apps support habit-building to identify proven mechanisms and opportunities.
User Interviews
I designed, planned, conducted, and synthesised one-on-one sessions. Each interview mixed conversation with interactive activities to explore first-time user journeys, test assumptions, and rate potential features.
Internal Strategy Workshop
Together with the PM, I co-planned a workshop for engineers and product stakeholders. We presented research insights and assessed implementation complexity across different feature ideas. Based on this we developed an feature development and implementation plan.
Feature Design
I redesigned the weekly streak feature and ideated goal-setting and workout reminder flows to be introduced during onboarding.
Developed a strategic feature plan balancing expected effect and implementation efforts, to increase user engagement and development efficiency.
Designed the weekly streak feature to boost motivation and retention.
Created concepts for goal- and reminder setting within onboarding flows to drive early habit formation and long-term user commitment.
The ImpactInternal statistics show, Users who maintain multi-week streaks are significantly more likely to renew their subscription.
Target setting and workout reminders created a significant impact on weekly engagement, resulting in higher than average weekly streaks
• No target or reminders → average streak of 1.87 weeks
• Reminders only → 2.25 weeks
• Target only → 3.14 weeks
• Both target and reminders → 3.34 weeks
My key takeaway was the importance of grounding decisions in research with the actual target users. While scientific studies claim that working out together has a positive impact, Gymondo users often carry negative or even traumatic memories of school sports, so the idea of group workouts felt intimidating rather than motivating.* This insight challenged assumptions and reinforced why I value Gymondo’s mission; making fitness and wellbeing accessible to people who are typically overlooked by more competitive fitness apps. *This appeared when working with Gymondo on Community features rather than Habit Building Features
