Rounds

Making training a seamless experience

The problem

The training experience in combat sports such as boxing, Muay Thai or MMA is not always seamless when people have to take the gloves off and on to set the timer in the phone while training.

The users

Most the people that I talked to who shared the same problem are amateur fighters and people who love training combat sports.

Research & discovery

Face to face Interview

I talked to other members in my boxing gym to explore how they use timers during training and sparring at the moments, the pain points of their current solutions and what they look for in a better way to improve their training experience.

Competitor analysis

I looked at the existing timer apps that people in my gym and other that I found to compare different features and how UX of those apps could be improved.

The findings

72%

People (mostly boxers) get annoyed when they have to take the gloves on and off to change the timers.

78%

Users use their phones to set timers compared to those who prefer the physical timer clock at the gym.

95%

Apps require users to set up timer intervals for the entire session before training.

The app structure

Based on the findings, I came up with the key app features that can accommodate the users' needs and created a map to connect all the features together like in the image below.

The wireframe

Visual design

The key functions include:

Preconfigured and ready to use timer presets for boxing, muay Thai and MMA. Users have the option to create their own presets based on their own training programs
Colour indication for different phases with audio cues
Users can control the app using voice activation - integration with Siri on iOS
Settings for rounds, warm up, and rest with times and sounds