HomePole is a fitness application designed to help pole dance athletes supplement studio training by optimizing practice time at home. The app offers personalized training programs as well shorter, daily drills and exercises to help dancers tackle their specific goals and needs. Users can also explore new tricks and track their progress directly on the app.
KEY TASKS
User Research
Product Roadmapping
Interaction Design
Visual Design
Branding
Prototyping
Usability Testing
KEY DESIGN TOOLS
Sketch
Illustrator
Photoshop
InVision
one
Background
the Pole Dance fitness trend
Pole dance first emerged in the 12th century as a Chinese acrobatic sport, eventually moving to India as a cross training tool. Impacted by century-old techniques and the rise of the Western world, modern day pole dancing is quickly emerging as a mainstream fitness trend. Performed by casual students, gym-goers and world renowned athletes alike, pole dance is in the middle of a large transformation, seen as an unabashed and confident celebration of the body as well as an avenue for physical fitness. Many organizations are currently working to include pole as an Olympic sport.
two
the problem
bought a home pole. rarely use it.
In comparison to gym memberships, pole dance lessons are not cheap. Class headcount limitations, higher physical demand on instructors, special equipment fees... numerous factors play into the priciness of the sport. Students will often invest in a home pole to save time and money by training in between (or in complete replacement of) studio classes. In theory, this would be the ideal solution, but too often we hear pole dancers confess a lack of home pole usage. Some admit to never using their poles at all... but why? Why purchase a $300 home pole only to let it catch dust?
(Left) Photograph of a home pole shared by one of my user research participants
(Right) Different heights available for home pole equipment setup
three
Research
digging into the "why"
Popular media scanning & competitive analysis
I conducted popular media scanning to understand how local media covers pole fitness. I also examined industry trends and market data. I then conducted a competitive analysis of 10 existing products (both directly and tangentially related to pole fitness and general fitness needs). The goal of this research was to better understand the landscape of existing solutions and identify ways in which the products address — or fail to address — needs of the target user.
User interviews
Following these, I conducted five user interviews with pole dance athletes from around the Bay Area, ages ranging from 22-45. All participants owned home poles. Based on the interviews, I distilled six key restraints that consistently discouraged people from using their home poles. These insights informed a set of design principles that subsequently guided the ideation and prototyping process.
RESTRAINT #1
Pole repertoire is too small
Principle: (Beginner to intermediate level polers — not enough to work on or no idea what to work on.) The design solution should help athletes explore and discover new tricks and training material.
RESTRAINT #2
Not as fun to pole alone
Principle: (Community plays a large role in training motivation.) Integrate community and social media aspects, particularly Instagram since it is the primary form of inspiration gathering for polers.
RESTRAINT #3
"Too lazy" to warm up
Principle: There is an opportunity to lower the resistance towards home training by incorporating warmups into the drills and exercises directly.
RESTRAINT #4
No structure in home training
Principle: The design solution should help dancers strategize a plan for their home training based on their unique goals.
RESTRAINT #5
Limitations of physical surroundings
Principle: The solution must be aware of and account for physical space limitations (pole height, space surrounding the pole) that can affect how much and what kind of training can be done. There is an opportunity for filtering drills specifically by height and space.
RESTRAINT #6
No hands-on instructor — safety concerns
Principle: The solution must address safety needs by providing proper spotting techniques and injury prevention pointers for each trick and drill. The app should help keep users safe and well informed about when to engage or step back from unfamiliar tricks.
Other notable insights:
When lacking physical space, polers are more likely to use their home poles only for conditioning as opposed to training tricks and sequences.
Despite the aforementioned restraints, all participants responded "no" when asked whether they regret purchasing a home pole.
four
define
Identifying the user, mapping out the app
Based on the principles shaped from the research, I built out a primary persona to best summarize and capture the needs of the target user. An application map and user flow were created to define the architecture of HomePole and a user's journey through it.
SOLIDIFYING THE Persona
drawing Out the User Flow
MAPPING OUT THE APP
five
Ideate
Narrowing down concepts &
prioritizing restraints
In its initial ideation phase, HomePole sought to treat all six restraints and their resulting design principles with equal weight. However, concept refinement sessions as well as five early-stage, conceptual prototype evaluations revealed that this approach seemed to increase users' cognitive load and confuse them about the core goal of the app. Subsequent efforts were geared around identifying which concepts to keep and which features to prioritize for the design phase.
(Left) Concept refinement session notes
(Middle) Synthesis of information gathered during concept prototype evaluations
(Right) Resulting initial sketches — beginning the wireframing process
six
design
KEY SCREENS: Bringing HomePOle to life
HomePole is meant to help pole dancers alleviate any fiscal or time-related burdens from taking outside classes. It helps polers optimize their home training sessions by honing in on the individual user's goals. With machine learning technology, it will continuously work to improve the user experience by providing drills and exercises that best match its athlete's needs and respond to user feedback.
Register / Sign In
Home
The home screen features the user's daily drills that are part of their longer-term, personalized training program. This screen showcases headlining articles and HomePole news as well as the curated content surrounding pole trends and popular tricks (this is to help save the user time from digging for this on their own). Users will also be able to catch their friends' latest activities on the app.
Inbox: Reminders & Messages
The inbox houses the user's main messages and notifications. Polers can set reminders for themselves as well as hold conversations with fellow HomePole friends and users.
TRAINING PROFILE
training program
The program builder offers customizable training regimens based on a poler's specific interests and needs. Users can choose their desired program category and further refine the plan by selecting tracks (points of emphasis) and setting up specific parameters around their training schedule (e.g. time allowance, pole height and space). Users may complete or skip their scheduled drills and leave feedback for the app as it continues to upate and refine the experience and its understanding of the user's goals.
quick drills
Don't want to commit to a program yet? No problem. HomePole also offers short, isolated drills with built-in warm ups. These drills range from conditioning exercises to flow sequences and specialized practice (e.g. heelwork).
tracker
Once users finish a drill or accomplish a trick, they can choose to log their accomplishments on the personal tracker. This tracker is composed of customizable lists that athletes can organize to their own liking. They can also attach and consolidate videos, photos, notes, and any links or #pd hashtags for easy reference when reviewing these tricks at another time.
Tricks List
While Instagram allows polers to find and explore moves via the #pd hashtag, it does not provide advanced search capabilities beyond this. Polers who seek to increase their pole repertoire can search the HomePole tricks database by name and tags alike. Users may also find tricks alphabetically, by category, or by difficulty level.
