Innovation of the gym experience

The Gateway team began with a site visit to a gym to observe the activities and behaviours of gym users. A series of facilitated workshops took place with the client to scope and frame the gym user experience and user needs in and around gym use.

The analysis and findings showed that regardless of the type of equipment, the most important aspect for many gym users was feedback from activities – i.e. informing the user of the effectiveness and progress of their work. This makes the gym user more motivated to embrace gym as a lifestyle rather than a sporadic hobby. In addition to this, safety aspects of gym equipment were highlighted.

This information was then used to begin ideation and brainstorming, which ensured the client had a validated process to ground his ideas. Five concepts were produced around user needs and experience. Viability checks were conducted to consider market and technical feasibility of each concept to assist selection and direction.

The company is now in a position to begin the development of a selected innovative concept. The concept development will focus on designing the selected idea to retrofit existing equipment and target the broadest range of gym users.