JDRAW

We chose to design an app that encourages people to run/jog/walk as exercise on a regular, ideally daily basis.

While the dietary, physical environment, mental health, social condition, and many other factors also affect people’s physical health, we believe exercise is the most important and decisive element of all. People care about physical health and well-being and know about the benefit of exercising on a regular basis. However, many people fail to keep up with it after the first few times for various reasons, including difficult access to gyms, feeling uncomfortable with exercising with other people, being unwilling to purchase equipment, being unable to gather enough people for group activities or team sports, and so on. We, therefore, decided to focus on running/jogging/walking since it is the one exercise that can be practiced almost anywhere at any time, with very low risk and skills required, does not need the assistance of extra equipment, and can be done individually or collectively.

However, although it seems extremely easy for people to add running onto their daily schedule and complete it, only a small proportion of people succeeded. My team wonders about the reason behind this phenomenon, performed survey research, and was able to conclude that people fail to run daily because they could not find it enjoyable and meaningful enough. Running can indeed be boring as people listen to the same music lists, run the same routes, and see the same views every time. It is likely for people to get impatient and think they could have used the same amount of time to do some other meaningful or interesting activities rather than simply running.

As a result, we realized the core purpose of this app is to make running fun and to have people exercise and be responsible for their own physical health as truly enjoy the process.

We started brainstorming ideas that could connect running to different activities. For instance, a digital stamp/sticker collection, where the users receive a stamp/sticker after each time exercising. We then figured that digital gifts may have short-term attractions but hardly any effect in the long term. We then thought about setting it into a competition format where the users can see the data of friends and get involved in the competition. We again realized that such a mode would put more pressure rather than pleasure on people who have not been enjoying running in the first place. After multiple proposals including collection, competition, virtual character representation and modeling, etc., we came up with our final idea.

We decided to make an app that reduces the users’ stress and frustration with making exercise plans and designing running routes as we design for them in an interesting way. The app makes running plans for the users and generates a satellite-view picture of their track after each run.

As the user opens up the app, they will see a “Start” button, which by clicking leads them to the second page where 4 options of “pick,” “draw,” “start,” and “competition” appear. “Pick” would lead the user to our database of stored basic shapes such as a heart, a diamond, and flowers. Then the size of the shape would change based on the ideal distance or calorie consumption the users enter on the “Goal” page. The user would then be able to start their run following the generated plan on the app along with voice guidance for the whole duration of their run. The “draw” button, instead, allows the user to draw or import their own creative shape, which can be an outline of the figure, a name, or even a proposal message since, after ending each recording, the users will be able to share a report that includes the picture and the data or their run. The users can also select “start” and enter their distance or calorie goals and start ‘freestyling’ along the run! The final option of “competition” leads people to the page where they can enter a monthly-renewed project of a larger and more complicated drawing that will be separated into small sections for users to complete each time. The users can then compete on their progress on the same drawing. The users are further connected by the “popcorn” function. After receiving the report of each run, the users, in addition to posting in general, can also click on the “popcorn” button and ‘popcorn’ one of their friends to pass on the challenge. The friend, once accepted, has 48 hours to complete the challenge and will get the chance to pass to challenge over to another friend by “popcorning” them. The app keeps track and records each run and forms a personal “Gallery” that includes all the records the users wish to keep on the profile page which also contains the profile picture and user name and id of the user, as well as “Settings” section and “Membership” information. The whole app is designed to be in calming and peaceful colors such as pink or blue and cute Bai Jumjuree fonts to reinforce the idea of seeing running as an enjoyable experience.

In conclusion, our initials and purpose of designing this running app are to make running fun and interactive and encourage people to exercise and care about themselves and their physical health, appreciate the environment and surroundings, allow friendship bonding at the same time, and pursue a healthier and happier lifestyle in a costless way.

Built With

• figma