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Project Brief: Tough Mudder

Tough Mudder is an endurance event series in which participants attempt grueling obstacle courses designed to test their physical and mental limits without the pressure of competition: community and teamwork are central to their business model. My team developed an application to help Tough Mudder participants and their teams train for an event.

The Team/My Role

My team consisted of 2 UX Designers and 1 UX Researcher (myself.) As the research lead, I created user interview scripts, conducted 4 user interviews, ran 4 usability tests, and synthesized research findings. I also worked with my team to create personas, user flows, low fidelity wireframes, and a high-fidelity prototype.

Problem

New members to the Tough Mudder community need fun, collaborative, guided training in order to better prepare themselves and their team for the challenges of a Tough Mudder course.

UX Solution

Aid users in their training for Tough Mudder while also providing a platform for team collaboration and communication.

Research

Competitive Research

Initially, I researched other companies in the personal fitness and/or obstacle course space such as Peloton, Obe Fitness, and Spartan Race to gain insight into the pros and cons of each platform. I took note of their features and specific offerings to aid with the initial brainstorming session.

User Interviews

Methodology & Participants

I interviewed four users about their experiences with Tough Mudder via video call (Zoom, Discord.) User permission was obtained prior to recording. Users were asked additional follow-up questions post-interview.

Two users were age 28, two were age 30, and users were evenly split among gender (50/50 male/female.) All four users completed a half (5k) Tough Mudder, and two also completed a full (10k) event.

Findings

Overall: All participants heard about Tough Mudder through word of mouth (4/4 from friends or acquaintances.) Participants emphasized the fun, collaborative aspect of the event as a key reason they enjoyed it, especially noting the friendliness and helpfulness of other participants during the event itself. 4/4 participants joined as a team with people they already knew, frequently through other physical exercise (2/4 soccer teammates, 2/4 rock climbing buddies.)

Training: While the participants shared common activities with their teammates, all participants trained separate from their teams, with the majority citing scheduling issues as the key conflicting factor to doing team practices.

Only 1 participant trained for the 5-mile event outside of pre-existing exercise routines. Both participants who did the 10-mile event trained specifically for it, however they still did not train as a team, and they noted that they wished they had known what specific obstacles to train for.

Note: the website for Tough Mudder lists all potential obstacles teams could encounter, however each event has its own subset of specific obstacles pulled from the larger list, so teams don’t know what they will be running into until they get there.

Both participants who only completed the 5k noted that they would definitely train harder if they were to do a 10k.

0 participants used the Tough Mudder app for training, however 1 participant used the PDF training guides from the official website.

Reactions & Future Events: All participants found the events extremely fun, especially noting the friendliness and helpfulness of other event-goers. All participants stated a desire to do more Tough Mudder races, although Covid-19 concerns currently outweighed the desire to do another Tough Mudder.

Synthesizing Data

For the purposes of finding trends within the data, I card-sorted interview responses and created an affinity map. I used the resulting groups to create two personas: Cassie Smith and Terri Jacobs. For the project, I focused on the Cassie persona.

Affinity Map

Persona 1: Cassie

Persona 2: Terri

Low-fidelity team feed example

Design

Sketches & Wireframes

Our challenge was to create an application that helped users train for a Tough Mudder, while also enabling them to collaborate and communicate with teammates. We held a brainstorming session to come up with design ideas for the application, and settled on a gamified interface to encourage users with small “wins.” We created wireframes to test our idea, including screens for account creation, joining a team, viewing personal “stats,” selecting a workout, scheduling a workout with a teammate, and viewing the team “feed.”

Research Pt. 2

Usability Testing

Methodology

I conducted 2 tests using the prototype our team built in Figma. Participants were instructed in the general purpose of the application and then were given a set of tasks to complete.

Tasks were:

Create an account & join a team
Navigate to workouts and select the bicep curls workout
Check their stats
Navigate to the Calendar and News Feed pages

Participants were instructed to give feedback as they went. Participants were observed as they interacted, and were given guidance as needed. Follow-up questions (frequently in the form of “why” or “how”) were added on-the-spot to give further insight into participants’ thought processes.

Findings – Positives

Create Account: Participants liked the visual indicators of progress in the account creation process, as well as the simple, small pieces the process was made up of.

Calendar: Participants liked that they could invite others to workout with them.

XP System: Participants enjoyed the gamification aspect of the application, and thought it was a neat way to motivate users.

Findings – Areas to Improve & Suggestions

Create Account: One participant experienced confusion over the account creation process, expecting to be logging in.

Suggestion: Relabel button at end of process to “create account.”

Join Team: Participants expressed a desire to see how they knew team requests’ sender, as well as what the team name would be. Participants also were confused by whether they were sending a request to Peter, or if they were receiving one.

Suggestion: Clarify team requests page per above.

Workout: Participants were confused by biceps already being selected when they got to the workout page. They also requested more information for the workouts themselves, such as number of sets and reps, as well as what obstacles the workout might help them prepare for. The playlist section also generated confusion: one participant thought it was for music, and the other didn’t realize they needed to click it to get to the workout.

Suggestion: Create no-muscle-selected landing page for workouts. Increase detail on workout info page - sets, reps, and what obstacles it can help you prepare for. Rename playlist button.

Stats: Participants liked - but were confused by - the xp system. Amongst concerns presented were how the system knew your starting fitness level, how the xp system worked for weaker vs. stronger muscles (i.e. more xp for weaker muscles), and how it would help them achieve their goals (“What level do I need [specific muscles] to be to be at to be ready for a tough mudder?”) Participants also expressed confusion with the front/back buttons for the model, as they expected the “back” button to take them to the prior screen, rather than showing muscles on the model’s back.

Suggestion: Reframe system to more directly help users achieve their personal workout goals. All users start at level 0, and level up relative to their personal fitness. Goal is to improve self and workout with the team, not to reach a predetermined “readiness level.” Change “front/back” buttons to a flip icon.

Calendar: One participant was confused by the create event flow from the calendar.

Suggestion: When creating an event from the calendar, show a different workout page than normal to let users know they are creating a workout for the event.

Team Feed: Participants liked the team feed, but expressed a desire to see more information there (team stats, camaraderie, level-ups.)

Suggestion: Add more detail to high-fi prototype. This was largely a case of the tested prototype having placeholder images and fields.

Final Prototype

We adjusted our prototype to better address the issues and concerns from our usability testing, and from there developed our final product. Click the image below to explore the prototype app as Cassie Smith.

Next Steps

Looking forward, I would like to add greater functionality to several of the features we implemented.
I would also like to expand the available workouts, as well as as let users know what Tough Mudder obstacles a workout would help them prepare for.
Finally, I would like to refine the XP system to better represent users’ fitness goals. Chiefly, I would like to find a way to promote consistent work over time rather than large inconsistent bursts of exercise.
- The idea would be to avoid a New Year’s Dilemma, where people buy gym memberships to fulfill a new year’s resolution and work super hard for a short time then stop going after a month or two.