Web/Mobile App Critique
For this post, we will examine a mobile application and provide some recommendations for improving it.
Dr. Jim Stoppani is a Ph.D. bodybuilder who has worked for Men's Health and spent years developing nutrition and exercise programs. He sells supplements and exercise programs through his website, www.jimstoppani.com
A subscription to the website for $15 a month gives access to a mobile application that complements the exercise programs provided. One of the critical components of a strength training program is variety. Staying with the same program continuously will lead to your body adapting and growing slowly. The Jim Stoppani web app allows you to select from various programs and schedule the workouts to complement your needs. There are programs designed for working out 4 to 7 days a week. When you choose your program, you specify which days of the week you want to do the workout, and a customized workout is set up for each day. Programs usually run for 4 to 6 weeks, with the intent of picking a new program to give the body new challenges. Once you have selected your program, you can review the workouts for each given day, including links to video and text descriptions of how to perform each exercise. Your subscription is integrated with the website tools. Selecting programs and scheduling can be done from the web or inside the application.
Below is an image from the Ripped in 6 Challenge workout program. You can see the calendar showing which workouts are scheduled for which days. You can drag and drop entries from one day to another if life causes you to miss a workout on the specified day. When you begin a workout, a log opens, which allows you to record the repetitions you do and the weight of each set. A fun feature on the front page is the total sum of how many pounds you have lifted using the workouts. Getting your first 1 million pounds lifted is a fun ego nudge and a great motivator. My first improvement suggestion is an indicator for each exercise what your minimum and maximum weights for this exercise have been previously. For some programs, you will lift a more considerable weight for fewer repetitions, whereas other programs ask you to lift a lighter weight for twenty to thirty repetitions. Access to how you are progressing overall gives you the information you need to decide where to start a given series of exercises.
The programs on the website often include specialized instructions for conducting a given workout. The application does not yet provide this context, so you must review the program before engaging in the given workouts. For example, you may need to use "Drop Sets," where the final workout set is performed commonly, then some weight is removed, and you immediately continue. This repeats until fatigue does not allow you to continue. Users will often complain about whether the drop set refers to the final set only or to each set of the exercise. Adding reminder notes for these concerns inside the workout would be very helpful.
The final recommendation is for user vanity. When working out with dumbbells, we will do the same exercise on both sides of the body. Currently, this will be logged in the application as number of reps and weight. But what should you include? Logging the total reps of each side? This confuses many users who want to see the vanity weight at the beginning of the application reflect what they lifted. As these reps on each side of the body are not logged, the temptation is to log the dumbells' combined weight, making it a little more challenging to compare weights needed when higher repetition sets are called for. Overall, this application is very useful to the prospective bodybuilder/strength enthusiast.
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