Personalized yoga app
In this project,
I worked as a product designer, combining strategic thinking, UX/UI expertise, and artistic vision to bring a raw idea to life: a personalized yoga app offering tailored practices and an artistic touch. From this foundation, I shaped the app’s concept, designed its core flows, and refined the experience to be user-centered, inclusive, and visually distinct.
This case study highlights how I balanced artistic demands with effective UX principles to create a meaningful and engaging experience.
The initial direction lacked clarity on user needs and goals
The client’s vision was rooted in years of working with yoga practitioners, but their initial idea lacked clarity around specific user pain points and goals. For example, while the client emphasized personalization and artistic identity, they didn’t provide concrete user scenarios or a well-defined target audience. Additionally, the balance between functionality and visual appeal was unclear, leading to potential misalignment with the app’s core purpose.
To address this, I:
- Refined the target audience by collaborating with the client and synthesizing their research into clear personas and use cases.
- Defined project goals such as tailoring practices to injuries, supporting mastery of yoga poses, and creating an inclusive experience for all users.
- Advocated for a balanced approach that prioritized usability and user needs while delivering a visually distinct product. For instance, I ensured that artistic touches didn’t overshadow core flows like onboarding or practice customization.
I adopted a strategic, user-centered approach, blending creativity with structured problem-solving
To bridge the gap between the client’s vision and user needs, I took a holistic approach. I addressed all aspects of the experience—functionality, reliability, usability, and visual delight—simultaneously, ensuring the app’s foundation was strong enough for future iterations.
For example:
- Functionality: Ensured the app allowed users to customize practices based on injuries, goals, and preferences, creating a highly adaptive experience.
- Reliability: Designed intuitive flows and safeguards to prevent confusion during tasks like reporting injuries or choosing yoga poses.
- Usability: Created an onboarding flow that was inclusive yet simple, ensuring users wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by questions.
- Visual Delight: Developed a gender-neutral, abstract character that emphasized the beauty of imperfection, aligning with the app’s message of inclusivity and acceptance.
Navigated competing priorities with adaptability and collaboration
While the client prioritized visuals early in the project, I worked to ensure that functionality and usability weren’t compromised. For instance, the client requested that every screen be visually polished from the start, but I advocated for starting with grayscale wireframes to refine the user flow.
To bridge this gap, I:
- Designed sketches and quick prototypes that showcased the potential of the visual identity without derailing the focus on user journeys.
- Iteratively refined the visual identity, incorporating the client’s feedback while staying aligned with the app’s purpose.
- Maintained clear communication about the importance of functionality, explaining how strong foundations would enable more effective iterations in the future.
The solution: a user-centered app balancing function, creativity, and inclusivity
This diagram illustrates how I balanced artistic identity with user-centric functionality to meet both the client's vision and the users' needs in this MVP.
My work significantly shaped the app's concept and built a strong foundation for its potential success
Through strategic design and creative exploration, I made impactful contributions to the app's early development:
- Clarified goals and target audiences, ensuring the app was aligned with user needs and business vision.
- Created a unique, inclusive visual identity featuring a minimalist, gender-neutral character, setting the app apart in a crowded market.
- Designed critical user flows, including onboarding, practice customization, and feedback, to enhance usability and give users control.
- Validated key design decisions through iterative testing with real users, even with limited resources, ensuring functionality and appeal.
- Early feedback showed strong user engagement, with testers excited about the app's potential once launched.
How it all started
The client, a team including an AI-ML engineer and a professional yoga instructor, had a vision that was rooted in years of experience working with yoga practitioners. Their research and interactions in yoga classes shaped the initial concept and the target audience. Through in-depth discussions, I clarified their goals and defined how the app could address the unique needs of its target audience.
Together, we identified the project goals
Who this app was designed for
- General yoga practitioners who need personalized sessions for pain relief, injury recovery, or routines tailored to their physical conditions.
- Advanced practitioners who work toward mastering certain poses in a safe way.
These users seek safe, personalized yoga practices to feel better, avoid injuries, and track their progress.
To address these needs, I approached personalization by designing a set of user scenarios based on foundational knowledge shared by the client, who had years of experience working with yoga practitioners. These scenarios served as a blueprint for the app's personalization features, ensuring relevance and adaptability for different user goals:
- Scenario 1: Recovery Focus
A user with an injury inputs their pain area, and the app tailors safe, targeted yoga routines to alleviate discomfort and support recovery. - Scenario 2: Daily Practice
A user selects a quick session suited to their energy levels or available time. Past data and preferences drive the app's recommendations for an efficient and engaging experience. - Scenario 3: Goal Achievement
A user aiming to master a specific pose receives step-by-step guidance, with the app adapting routines to track their progress and support their goals.
These scenarios shaped the app’s ability to adapt dynamically, making the experience intuitive and deeply personalized.
From scenarios to solutions
Using the defined user scenarios as a foundation, I designed an initial user flow that addressed key personalization needs for the app. After rounds of feedback and iterations, the finalized user flows supported:
- Onboarding: Collecting user goals, injuries, and preferences in a friendly, approachable manner to personalize their experience.
- Customization: Empowering users to tailor their practices based on mood, discomfort, or progress goals.
- Feedback: Encouraging users to share insights after each session and integrating that input into future recommendations.
Below are the finalized flows:
This flow served as the backbone for the wireframing process
I kicked off the wireframing process by creating initial sketches that outlined the app’s key functionalities and user journeys. These sketches became the foundation for the prototype and served as a springboard for further iterations.
Balancing client vision and design principles
From the early stages, the client emphasized the importance of a strong visual identity alongside the app's functionality. Adapting to their needs, I began developing an inclusive, gender-neutral character inspired by my experience as a yoga practitioner. The idea stemmed from a sketch I made during a talk by Bryan Kest, father of Power Yoga, where I resonated with his message of embracing imperfections in practice.
This philosophy guided the app’s visual identity—minimal, simple, and approachable. By focusing on inclusivity and imperfection, I designed a character and aesthetic that made yoga feel less intimidating and more relatable. The client loved this direction, which set the tone for the app's overall design language.
Returning users: empowering choice and flexibility
The first user journey I prototyped was for returning users, ensuring they had control over their experience. I wanted users to decide whether to customize their practice or start with a pre-curated session based on past data.
Initial iterations featured a simple design emphasizing functionality. However, the client wanted the app to reflect a classroom-like experience by always asking users how they felt and offering immediate customization options. To balance this with user autonomy, I added an “Exercises” tab in the navigation bar, allowing quick access to saved or recommended practices.
Customization: tailored practices for every need
With the customization flow, I faced a familiar challenge: the client prioritized aesthetic over functionality. I iterated the design, starting with a straightforward version and gradually incorporating visual elements that aligned with the app’s imperfect, inclusive concept. These consistent, hand-drawn-style graphics helped address the client’s aesthetic focus while maintaining usability.
While full-scale user testing was deprioritized due to timeline constraints, I conducted small-scale validation with two users per iteration to ensure usability and refine design decisions.
Onboarding: a warm welcome that builds trust
To create a personalized experience, I designed an onboarding flow that collected essential user data—yoga goals, gender (in an inclusive way), injuries, and discomforts—while maintaining transparency about why this information was needed. Using intuitive visuals, such as abstract body figures for reporting pain, the flow ensured simplicity and user comfort. The result was a thoughtful and streamlined onboarding process that supported personalization without overwhelming users, striking a balance between usability and engagement.
Looking back: my role and contributions
While the earlier sections detail how my work shaped the app's foundation, this segment reflects on the broader impact of my contributions:
- Strategic Vision: Defined the app’s goals and user-centric approach, ensuring alignment with the client’s vision while addressing key user needs.
- Distinctive Visual Identity: Introduced a unique, inclusive, and approachable design language that set the app apart in the yoga app market.
- Streamlined User Flows: Designed intuitive onboarding and customization journeys that balanced personalization with simplicity, ensuring users felt guided and supported.
- Inclusive Copywriting: Crafted thoughtful, sensitive language around topics like gender and injuries, enhancing the app’s relatability and user experience.
- Validation Through Testing: Despite limited testing, feedback from participants confirmed the app’s potential to engage users and meet their needs.
Next steps
If the project were to continue, I would focus on:
- Completing the user flow, including secondary pages like progress and profile.
- Conducting extensive user testing to validate design decisions and uncover usability issues.
- Adding accessibility features to make the app more inclusive.
- Enhancing retention by implementing added-value features like daily moves reminders.
- Strategizing monetization approaches to align with the app’s inviting and user-focused vibe.
Key takeaways
This project taught me the importance of clearly aligning on scope with clients from the outset and setting realistic boundaries for iterations during an MVP design process. Weekly meetings and extensive discussions can lead to overexpectations, which I learned to manage by staying adaptable while prioritizing user needs and testing. This experience reinforced the value of balancing creative flexibility with structured project management to deliver impactful results within defined timelines.
I truly enjoyed designing this app and creating its unique characters. It was a project that combined creativity, strategy, and user-centered design, and I hope you enjoyed reading its case study.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss it further, feel free to reach out—I’d be happy to connect!
