As a frequent user of the ClassPass app, there are a lot of things to love about it. I can try a variety of workouts, book in advance or last minute, and keep track of everything in one centralized location. But if anyone in this room is at all familiar with it, I would bet you have experienced your fair share of frustrations. Truth be told, there are many aspects I would fix if given the chance. For the purpose of this exercise though, I have focused my energies on the experience of searching for a particular fitness studio.
The Problem
When I use their search tool to find a particular fitness studio, ClassPass provides a list of all participating locations that I can then click on to see the week’s schedule. There are two main pain points with this approach.
If a studio has multiple locations I have to check each location’s schedule separately. It is difficult to digest multiple schedules one by one and takes additional time to do multiple searches to get through the full list.
A user has no way to go straight to the studio page if she wants more information about it. She must first select a class, as though she is going to book it, and can then click through to the studio page. It is not at all intuitive for new users.
So Why Is It Designed This Way? Some Thoughts …
Company Business Goals
According to the ClassPass website, the company wants to facilitate the discovery of new classes as a way of supporting group fitness studios. They advertise themselves as offering thousands of different kinds of workouts to choose from - and the app interface is designed to support that concept. The home screen promotes exploring classes by genre and newly added studios. You can filter classes by time of day, location, activity type - but not by studio.
The Favorite Feature
If a user likes a class, she can ‘heart’ it and the studio will be saved to a list accessible via her profile page. From there she can see an aggregated schedule of classes only from those studios. She can also visit a studio page directly for more information. While this does allow someone to curate her schedule based on studio preferences, the feature is not promoted and the flow to favorite a class is not intuitive either.
NYC Only Problem
In a city as dense as New York, it seems quite likely that a user will visit different studio locations in multiple neighborhoods, maybe even across more than one borough. In more spread out areas, is a user is less likely to travel and therefore only cares about one at a time? Or maybe the studios themselves have fewer locations in those cities?
Direct Bookings
If a ClassPass user finds a studio she really likes, will she then choose to book classes directly from them? If so, would it be less advantageous of ClassPass to accommodate for a multi location schedule?
The Solution
Target User(s)
Someone who is relatively new to ClassPass, she has taken several classes and found one she really liked. Wanting to see what else the studio offers, she searches the studio directly and learns it has multiple locations. To find either the same class or another one that appeals to her and fits into her schedule, she wants to see a complete schedule of all locations.
A frequent ClassPass user in a city she is not yet familiar with, she wants to find the locations of her favorite studio to book a class. Since she doesn't know the neighborhoods solely by name, she uses the map locations feature to find the studio closest to her.
The Business Case
Through interviews with friends who use the app frequently, I learned this is a common frustration for them.
The easier it is to develop a relationship with a studio the more likely a new user will become a frequent, long-time user.
Promotes an additional kind of discoverability - instead of new studios its new classes at a particular studio.
Initial Sketches
Solution A
Solution B
Solution C
The final result