When training got lonely

B2C
iOS
Android
Lead Designer

Staedium was a new business unit inside Freeletics, started during the pandemic, when people wanted to train together but couldn’t.

It turned a phone, a TV and connected dumbbells into one multiplayer fitness game: pick a workout, challenge someone, and compete on your own schedule, while the phone tracks every rep in real time.

“How might we make home training more engaging in the long run?”

[The question behind Staedium]

Problem

During the pandemic, Freeletics bet on strength gaming: a phone, a TV and connected dumbbells as one game. By the time I joined as Lead Designer, the concept was set. The hard part was making it work as one product.

Two development crews, game and app, building in parallel
Hardware and software that had to feel like a single experience
A new behavior to teach, from training alone to competing with others

Pick a workout, challenge someone, compete on your own schedule.

Before the game, the phone scans both the player and the dumbbells to track reps and assign scores in real time.

Key contributions

Aligned two crews into one product. As the only product designer across both teams, I aligned the game designer, sound designer, animator, Unity developers and app developers on one direction.
Turned testing into decisions. Every two weeks, our user researchers and I tested the full setup with real athletes, 200+ hours with 15+ people. I brought every finding back to the people building it.
Designed the mobile UI and turned inherited designs into one design system, so everyone worked from one source.

PM
UXR
Sound design
Product design
Game Designer
Unity developer
Backend dev.
Eng. Manager
Unity developer

UXD
(Me)

PM
UXR
Design agency

iOS
iOS
AND
AND
Backend dev.
Web dev.
Eng. Manager

How we tested

We tested the full setup in a real living room: phone, TV, dumbbells and an athlete. On top of that, we brought the game to events like PUSH Conference and invited community members to play at our office.

Testing...
Testing...
And a lot more testing.

What I learned

People don’t troubleshoot, they leave. When phone and TV felt like two products, users lost interest. So I made the handoff between devices the core of the experience.
Only end-to-end tests show the real product. Features that worked alone broke together, so we tested the full setup every two weeks.
Two crews need constant alignment. I aligned with both PMs on priorities all the time and brought in freelancers to fill the gaps.
Staedium was pivoted after three years. People wanted to leave the house again. Next time, I’d test early whether a new behavior outlasts the moment that created it.
Turned inherited designs into one design system, so everyone worked from one source.