Project Title:
Moovefit: Exploring circularity in the fitness industry
From January to May 2021.
My role:
User research, Co-design facilitation, Design strategy, UI/UX design,
User research, Co-design facilitation, Design strategy, UI/UX design,
Team:
Amirmohammad Azizi, Anvith Patil, Federica Parolisi, Martina Platini, Arianna Meroni, and Ismael Godinez
Amirmohammad Azizi, Anvith Patil, Federica Parolisi, Martina Platini, Arianna Meroni, and Ismael Godinez
Overview:
The Student Service Design Challenge is a global design award supported by Philips Experience Design in collaboration with IBM and the Service Design College. In this competition our team was selected as one of the 26 Finalist from +70 participants Globally. The topic of 2021entry was circularity and reverse logistics - How can we improve the end-of-life cycle by actively involving users?
The Context
Many sports products require high levels of energy to manufacture, they exploit low-paid labor in developing countries. It has not been of major concern to this $500 billion global industry to date. The fitness industry in Italy saw significant growth in the number of subscribers to gyms and wellness centers.
Hype
It was reported that fitness equipment sales rose by over 130% since last March. But as gyms started to reopen, people started to lose focus and most of the equipment started to gather dust.
Fragmented market
Italy's market is that it is very fragmented and is dominated by independent clubs, where the largest for-profit operators control just three per cent of the total number of clubs. Most of the Italian fitness/wellness clubs (about 70%) are small and medium-size: they develop on a surface of less than 1,000 square meters—distinguishing themselves from the majority of the European countries.
Use research
Cultural probes and Digital ethnography
We used different research methods intending to focus on the values which our target customer and what unique behavioral characteristics they would have. The methods were selected after carefully reviewing them from a qualitative and attitudinal perspective. Principally, to understand people's beliefs and rituals towards fitness products and services.
One refined question
How Might We increase efficiency in training by making a balance between home and gyms, letting people recognize their unused products and move from transactional to relational models between producer and user?
Moovefit
Moovefit is a new fitness service aimed at providing a hybrid fitness model which enables people to work out in their home, local gyms, or even outdoors. The service is empowered by unused second-hand products given by the users, who in exchange will have the possibility to get access to the new future-ready fitness ecosystem.
Waiving people's sense of failure of not using the products in their home by replacing it with the opportunity to have a trainer-led workout plan in their hand and achieve their fitness dream.
Fitness is an exercise in sustainability. Through it, we can look at the microcosm of our bodies and understand how our health and the health of the planet are intertwined. That is where Moovefit enters, by making the best use of products during their whole life span, and by accomplishing it we are directly making an impact on reducing the production of unsustainable fitness equipment.
