After using my fitness account on instagram for a week, I would overall consider it a success. It was exciting to post all the different meals I cooked, all inspirations for meals I want to cook in the future, what workout I did that day, etc, and I found that just the simple fact that I would be taking a picture after whatever I did and posting it, motivated me to do it in the first place (and with a little help from caffeine)! Just having a collection of pictures on the account of all the inspiration and progress I made throughout the week was really cool to see and makes me want to continue doing this because I felt a sense of accomplishment looking at it and reflecting. It kinda felt like a virtual diary of sorts because, since I am the only one who can see the account, I could talk about whatever I wanted and in some posts I found myself captioning words of encouragement to myself, which I didn’t anticipate. For example, on one of my posts when I felt like I was struggling during a workout, I posted a picture of my running shoes and captioned, “I kinda struggled with the run today because it was super hot! I’ll make sure to do better and maybe jog in the morning tomorrow instead of the afternoon!”. I think having this account changes how I look at fitness and getting healthy because it is essentially just a place where I can visually see my progress, what inspires me and what motivates me during this journey, which before it was all disorganized in my head.
Throughout the week, I did find some flaws in this design. The largest one being getting ahead of myself with the posting. Especially in the beginning, I found myself scrolling through instagram for an hour or two just looking for workouts, meal ideas, motivation, and workout accounts to follow. I excitedly posted all of these things to my account. I then looked at the collection of photos I had accumulated and immediately got overwhelmed. Where do I even begin? I decided that after that, I needed a little more structure to how I would post in a way that would actually help me, and told myself I would only post at most, 3 times a day. This helped me really prioritize what was important to me that day and what I was most proud of, and I felt that this was more rewarding than just posting random food/inspiration pictures.
If I were to push this idea further, I would consider incorporating 21-day or 30-day challenges for myself on the account to further target any specific goal I had in mind. For example, I could do a 30-day no midnight snacking challenge. I think that when it comes to getting healthy, frequently setting small goals for yourself can help you progress rather than you goal being to just “get healthy”. To add a “wow” factor to this design, I would create an app that could provide more structure, efficiency, and organization when trying to get healthy, and it would also have a space where you can post inspiration pictures, meal/workout ideas, etc, similar to the instagram. The app would also be able to set reminders for you if you needed them. This would improve usability, proficiency, and creativity in the design hierarchy of needs. Of course I would need to do some research on how to make an app but I think this would definitely elevate my concept.
Overall I really enjoyed my experience with the design process. Before this class, I had no idea that this much strategy and thought has gone into creating an idea or design for a product. Breaking it down into stages really helped me see that every step truly is necessary so you don’t leave out any details or make mistakes when trying to make a successful product! It pushed me out of my comfort zone when it came to the sketching, concept board and brainstorming part of the process because I usually don’t transform the ideas in my head into visuals or words, but I found it very helpful throughout this. It was a fun and efficient way to get my ideas our there and find the best ones and I would say that I got the most out of these steps in the design process. I also enjoyed working the the Design Hierarchy of Needs because it helped change my perspective on what my concept really was by categorizing what is was actually doing for users. If I ever come across a project where I need to come up with an idea for a product in the future, I will definitely refer to the Design Process!
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