Workout Schedules

Apple's fitness experience helps people get fit and stay fit. As part of this project, I identified an opportunity to create a brand new feature: Workout Schedules for the Fitness app on iOS and iPadOS.

Benefits for the User

• Users can now create, view, and manage their own workout schedules for various activities.
• Users can now view session history and schedules for each activity.

Benefit for the Product

• The product further embeds itself as a key part of peoples’ fitness journeys and routines.

Benefits for the Fitness Team

• The team gains scheduled workout data points for use in future product initiatives.
• The team gains a potential Fitness+ entry point in the schedule creation workflow.

This being a solo project, I took on the roles of a lean researcher and product designer. I gathered information via audits and paired my findings with a user archetype and user stories to create initial wires for the major pieces of the project. I then iterated and conducted moderated user tests to inform the final design.

Lean Research

• Taxonomy and Functionality Audits - Apple’s Workouts experience on WatchOS and Fitness experience on iOS and iPadOS, WorkoutKit documentation, and similar/competing fitness apps.

• User Archetype - Creation of user archetype to act as a north star. This archetype is a directional stand-in for people who follow regimented training, workout schedules, or have consistent weekly routines.

• User Stories - I created 2 user stories to guide scheduling portion of the design update (schedule creation and modification).

Initial Design Thinking

• Information Architecture - The lion's share of the updates happen on the iOS/iPadOS Fitness app's "Workouts" tab.
• Activity List View - Each item acts as a great entry point into a subview containing session history and scheduled workouts.
• Scheduling a Workout - I maintained as much consistency as possible with the existing Custom Plans workflow for Fitness+ users. I imagined "The Planner" would benefit from the ability of creating multiple schedules for any given activity to distinguish between say solo and team practice and that led to the inclusion of a nickname field.
• Viewing the Schedule - I drew inspiration from the Calendar app. The day’s sessions appear as cards with completion status labels. Tapping on a card navigates to a subview for that schedule where users can manage preferences, see past session summaries, and see schedule stats.
• Completing Scheduled Workouts - Apple Watch users explicitly initiate a scheduled workout via the Workouts app, enabling the system to automatically update the completion status of that particular session. Non Apple Watch users (or people who accidentally left their watch at home) are able to manually mark a session complete.
• Handling Unforeseen Scheduling Conflicts - I include the ability to skip a workout, move it to another day later in the same week, or to delete that particular session.

Testing

• Method - I did a moderated prototype test for two participants. The tasks included schedule creation and deletion.
• Findings - While both users completed the tasks successfully, one user reported an issue finding the entry point into the scheduling workflow via the activity list.

The final design leveraged Apple’s iOS and iPadOS 26 UI Kit and the watchOS 26 UI Kit. I custom designed the brand new scheduled workout card component and modified existing components to account for new data points. The only major change from the wires was the addition of a Sessions view that includes a comprehensive list of all past workouts as it made sense for it to be accessible from this tab. I was ultimately able to achieve consistent look and feel for the new features.

New Feature Additions for iOS/iPadOS Fitness App

• Sessions View - Comprehensive List of All Past Workout Sessions, Search
• All Activities View and Individual Activity Subview - View Activity Specific Session History, View Schedules, Create a New Schedule
• Schedule View and Scheduled Workout Subview -View Schedules for Past/Current/Future Dates, Scheduled Workout Cards (Including Status Labels and Management Controls), Scheduled Workout Preferences/Controls/Session History/Stats
• Add to Schedule Workflow - Mandatory Activity and Days of Week Selection, Optional Nickname/Goal/End Date/Start Date Selection
  

Updates to watchOS Workout App

• General Workout Initiation View - Addition of a “Scheduled Workouts” Button (Calendar Icon)
• Scheduled Workouts Subview - List of Scheduled Workouts as Items
• Scheduled Workout Initiation Subview - Initiate Scheduled Workout