I remember catching up with @wil.metcalfe back in 2019 when he told me about Actifit for the first time. I’d never been an individual who’s had any resemblance of a fitness routine, and to me, something clicked. I immediately downloaded it, and even though it was in the early stages at the time, I thought it was so cool that I could get rewarded with magic Internet money for exercising. :D The idea of a decentralized distribution system was (and still is) so profound, and even though Actifit was not the first to do it, I feel like they are one of the best examples of applying this idea. It was honestly a turning point for me, and it reshaped how I viewed the entire crypto community.
Fast forward a few years, and I’d admittedly gotten out of my fitness routines once again. I have had two children since, and a lot of the time, it feels like life has been on autopilot! This last holiday season, I wanted to carve out some time to take on a pet project, and Actifit immediately came to mind. It’s been a long time since I’ve approached a project this way, and honestly, even though it was just for fun, I’d probably avoid diving this deep into something without any discovery process. Regardless, it was an excellent way to brush up on my logo design skills, 3D illustration, and UX/UI design.
Divergent Exploration
I began by thinking through what Actifit is at its core (at least from my perspective). I identified three core components that work in tandem:
Fitness
Of course fitness is a core component here. I think this goes without saying.
Community
I can’t think of any other fitness app with such a dedicated and close-knit community as Actifit. Not only that, but the reports drive social activity.
Rewards
Whether it’s the AFIT tokens, new marketplace products, or even delegation, the third main component is certainly this general idea of being rewarded for contributing to the other two components.
Convergence and Refinement
The most exciting thing here is that these aren’t really “pillars”, and they act more like a cycle or system where each one feeds into the other and makes each component better. It’s like value-added to the power of 3. This realization lead me to the eventual concept of something like a “tri-force”. I wanted to capture the movement and energy of the existing logo, and simplify and abstract it to allow it to work in both tiny and massive implementations without scaling issues. The triangle not only communicates community and strength, but of course, it works to communicate the first litter of Actifit and AFIT.
When I drew the bottom left version, I was happy with the concept and dove into the 3D illustration to see how it would look on a coin. I liked it, but I felt it didn’t have enough sleekness or energy, so I refined it further and ended up with the vectorized versions here.
The red is an integral part of the current Actifit brand, and I wanted to keep that, but I did tweak it a little bit to increase the contrast ratio and help make it slightly more legible for smaller applications. I added some slight tweaks to the wordmark to make it more unified with the logomark.
Of course, I needed to make sure it worked in one color on black and white.
Web Design and Illustration
The concept for the landing page came to me as I was reading through the current home page. The main slogan on the site is “Rewarding your everyday activity”.
I would have spent a lot more time on this stage if it weren’t just a concept, but I decided that the best target audience (at least for now) was probably folks who are not necessarily drawn to Actifit through fitness, but more so through the blockchain community. I immediately shifted gears away from thinking about it as a fitness focus. I tried to think of ways to capture the idea of doing something relatively simple and getting rewarded for it. Walking the dog seemed like the perfect fit. A casual activity that gets you outside and gains you AFIT tokens as you enjoy your walk.
I had only started learning 3D illustration a few months before this, so this was an excellent project to apply some of my learning. I modeled and rigged the man and the dog going for a walk, as well as the coin stacks.
UX/UI Product Design
I intended to stop after the landing page, but I couldn’t resist jumping over and at least doing one or two quick UI redesigns on a couple of existing app screens. I chose to do the step tracking screen first as this is the screen users see most frequently. The main goal here was to introduce some delightful visuals while balancing simplicity to fit all relevant information on one screen. The blue that I introduced in the landing page design works nicely to help break the content up.
To keep the user engaged and motivated, I wanted to provide a fair amount of space dedicated to custom supportive messaging. I restyled the step tracker so that more information could fit inside of it, and I also made the 5k and 10k targets slightly more emphasized. I added a new chart to visualize your approximate steps broken down through the day. This way, you could take a look at it and see that you walked, say 30% of your total steps at the grocery store, and you’d have a good sense of how many steps that activity accumulated. And as shown, I drastically simplified the weekly chart to emphasize the general progress for the week.
The user profile page was an experiment to see how the current visual identity I developed applied in a completely different context. Instead of having a visual-heavy page, you have a text-heavy page. I didn’t spend much time on badges here because that’s a whole other rabbit hole to fall down, and I realized I had already gone way too far without getting any feedback from the people who use this every day. 🤣
What do you think?
So, that’s where this post comes in. I would love to hear what you, the Actifit community, think about the direction here.
Did I miss the mark completely?
Do you think Actifit even needs a design refresh?
What does the Actifit brand mean to you?
nice, looking simple and neat
Colin!!!! This is the cumulation of sooo much work! NICELY DONE MY FRIEND! I just love what you have done with your mad design skills here! You must have put hours and hours into this!
I'm so glad that we had that pivotal chat way back there in 2019! Holy wow! I can't believe the time has skipped by so quickly! Buuuut! You, I, and We have so much to show for it here on the Hive Blockchain!
I really hope that the @Actifit community is as excited about your concept for a graphical boost to the @Actifit project and I look forward to following along with all the feedback that you get!
Thank you for making this your pet project... AND in recognition for all of this amazing vision, insight, and effort... I'm going to hand you the BIGGEST #HighFive I have ever given anyone! A 100 Hive Tip from me to you!
Keep on doing what you do and I look forward to more amazing collaboration with you, myself, and @Actifit!
#HighFive to the power of 100 Hive! 🙌
@wil.metcalfe
Attention @mcfarhat & @actifit team!
WOW! Thanks you @wil.metcalfe. You are just the best 😄I'm going to use all 100 of these to promote this post (once I figure out the best way to do that!)
Great idea! Buuuut keep half and power it up! That’s another way to boost influence and bandwidth here on Hive! 🤔🙌👍
Wow. This would be so amazing! The design is so slick and friendly looking!
Thanks for the kind words, @cwow2!
Looks like a great redesign. The site itself has only changed slightly since day one but still looks like a huge work in progress. If it is to be brought mainstream it definitely needs something like this to give the right impression.
I think that the branding here looks very fresh and perfect for it's purpose.
My main concern for the app itself is usability for bringing in new users.
I do think that it needs a few basics to get more people involved.
I agree completely, @niallon11. The top priority has to be optimizing the signup flow, because even for me, a front-end developer and UX designer, I had trouble figuring out what to do in order to get started. I can only imagine trying to get my mom or siblings set up on this right now. 😆
I know that there are very likely many hurdles which I'm not accounting for, but in theory, it would likely be best to focus just on reducing the sign up to account info only (SSO or username and password, etc). And in the onboarding, the app could offer an opt-in to hook up a wallet/hive, etc. I think I'm just echoing you, but it's good to see that I'm not the only one who's thought about this.
I think you've got a great summary of some high impact solutions here.
I would hope to see something like LeoFinance have built coming to a lot of the dapps sooner rather than later. Sign up using a normal process and use the app away. Then the option to download full keys if you want to do more or use other apps.
If the team could offer that combined with a ux overhaul then it would be ready to market. I'm always talking about these things for any of the apps as it will be the key to getting users.
Just simplify everything for the lowest common denomination. So easy your mam can join. I would hope that these are on the road map this year somewhere. We'll have to wait and see.
Thank you for such great work !!
We like those ideas, and we will definitely look into the possibility of implementing them or some variations.
If you are not on actifit discord, please join
You know this is exactly what the app needs.
i have been using the app for almost 2.5 years and have actually lost motivation.
The rewards have gotten less, the app is still as basic as it was, not much has changed and it chows my battery like there is no tomorrow.
I have a killer workout and hit like 20k activity points, i would get less than 10c upvote and very actifit tokens.
The activity in the app has dropped drastically if you look at stats. I mean me, who does not even post often anymore is competing in the top 250 All-time leaderboards. I think its safe to say, most people, see the reward vs the effort as much as they used to. with so many cooler Dapps popping up, @actifit need to a better USP. Your designs and features are definitely one step closer, but they need to rethink the Product roadmap a lot more to increase their position in the market.
Thanks for the kind words, @mimismartypants.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you believe needs to be included in the product roadmap. What do you think is ultimately the thing or things that bring people to this platform?
Hey Colin!
I finally got around to promoting this post on @ecency! I'm really curious what the @Actifit community thinks of the ideas you have presented here so I figured that I would promote this post for the next 14 days. 😁
Can you double check to make sure this post shows up in the promoted part of the @ecency.app's feeds? I'll be checking as well!
Let's get these ideas out there so that we can maximize feedback! 👍
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I like the modern look that is comparable to any other app on the market. These simple UI/UX changes will make it easier to get more normies onboarded.
thanks for sharing this news
At first, I thought the brand was really refreshed and I was amazed.
What they do lack and sorely need is a decent designer.
Your ideas and manifestations are more than decent. In fact, they are excellent!
What do the team think about the suggestion?
After rereading the article and applauding again let's answer your questions.
YES! 10,000% YES!
(Regular/daily) Activity in your life for your life (and health). Also, a direct way to link two worlds - your real life with your online presence. Rewards, in form of some crypto tokens, come in third place or even later. After all, converting AFIT into anything really useful in the real-life is something that needs to be done ASAP and hasn't been covered adequately yet. OK, purchasing fitness items is a tiny step in this direction. Yet, much more is needed in order to keep the product alive.
Your work is superb, thank you.
Right on! Thank you kindly, Ervin. :)
Could you elaborate on this please? I'd love to hear what kind of opportunities you had in mind.
Hi, there! I like how you combined flat, 3d and skeuomorphic traits to explore a fun, simple and contemporary vision. I would love to see this moving. What software do you use for prototyping?
btw, I just started building a UX / UI design community here on Hive. You can join and help me there :)