Project Feel Anywhere Exercise Bike
Year 2020-2021
Agency KKStream Ltd.
Client Feelcycle
Feelcycle is a Japanese exercise brand, which hosts physical exercise classes around the country. During the pandemic crisis, they decided to bring physical event into customers houses starting from cycling.
Idol worship in sport business
In the beginning of the project, we had to comb the client’s needs and requirements. We interviewed and researched the sport business in Japan and had some great findings.
Idolatry
In Japan idols are created in every business, from entertainment, politics, to retailers. What they are selling is not the product itself, but the idol’s appearance and influence. For example, our client, Feelcycle, makes their profit most from the coach’s merch instead of the classes themselves.
Obsession of promo events
In Japan promotion is very important. It shows the business’ sincerity for the customers. Therefore each store would often host promo events to keep their business going. At Feelcycle, they would have grand physical exercise events for the members, where they could sell tickets and merch to the fans and the fans could have a chance to interact with their idol coaches.
Super fancy, super cool
Sport in Japan is more a fashion than a health topic. If you want to run a sport business, you need to focus on conveying the cool factor instead of telling customers how healthy they can get. Feelcycle not only package their coach into idols, but also make the gym look like a nightclub. It is about attracting fans, not health seekers.
TWO goals
Interaction with people
Since the members mostly join the classes for the coaches, it is important to make them feel included. This was easy when the events were offline, but when it comes online, it is way much more challenging to make the audience engaged.
Interaction with device
Interface on an exercise bike has to be thoughtfully made. We set up two bikes in the office to let everyone try and experience the scenario, in order to find insights in this newly growing sport. Music/video syncing is also a challenge for UX and development. We had to test and review our UI whenever we made a new version.
Interacting with people
In live streaming expression icons have been used as a quick response to the host. On an exercise bike, the users are constantly moving and possibly panting. Therefore we minimise the reaction to a clapping button.
We also make the showcase of instructors more appealing. It’s all about the instructor instead of the classes after all.
UX: Interacting with device
After trying the bikes ourselves, we concluded some keys to a good UX for an exercise bike.
Less is better
Users don’t have that many tasks to do on a bike. Don’t overwhelm the user with too many features, it will just make the whole experience frustrating, which is what you don’t want the most when you are exercising.
Bigger is better
The distance between the screen and the user’s face is not as far as watching TV, but also not close enough like a tablet. The usability is therefore focusing on the balance of showing information and making it easy to reach: the user has to tap the button when the video is playing, but the video can’t be covered too much at the same time.
