Improving User Experience (UX) in fitness apps: A study on long-term motivational strategies to support health goals

Author Identifier

Jing Zhou: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7657-6127

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Title

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Volume

15792 LNCS

First Page

133

Last Page

150

Publisher

Springer

School

School of Arts and Humanities

Comments

Zhou, J., Lin, Y., & Wang, W. (2025). Improving User Experience (UX) in fitness apps: A study on long-term motivational strategies to support health goals. International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 133-150. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-93505-3_10

Abstract

Health and fitness apps support health goals but have lower retention rates compared to other mHealth apps in China. Young people in China experience numerous physical activity issues: body dissatisfaction, insufficient physical activity, and disordered eating behaviours. Most Chinese fitness apps rely on motivational features such as exercise tracking, social communities, or live streaming influence to attract users [1, 2]. However, they do not promote a holistic healthy lifestyle to users. Our research reviewed current case studies to discuss the main features of the fitness apps: goal-setting, fitness influencers and gamification. We adopted co-design approaches involving twenty young Chinese adults and conducted research in four phases: user studies, ideating features, prototype tests, and evaluating implementations. Participants’ insights suggested one motivational strategy (Gamification, Relaxation, Mutual Growth, and Music) and provided a design model GEMM for improving User Experience (UX) in fitness app design.

DOI

10.1007/978-3-031-93505-3_10

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1007/978-3-031-93505-3_10