TRAINING READINESS

Know when to push and when
to let yourself recover

COMPANY

Garmin

ROLE

Lead Designer

EXPERTISE

UX/UI Design

YEAR

2022

About project

Connecting different metrics to one
metric that is easy to understand.

Team

Product manager

Lead designer (me)

UX Researcher

Physiologist

Data Engineer

Developers

Product manager

Lead designer (me)

UX Researcher

Physiologist

Data Engineer

Developers

Product manager

Lead designer (me)

UX Researcher

Physiologist

Data Engineer

Developers

Background

Garmin watches had multiple different features focusing on training, sleep, and recovery. However they weren't really talking to each other, and the data was spread to multiple places.

Also, lot of the guidance provided in the watches were reactive, and telling how you have done in the past, but none of the features really provided guidance on how hard you can train today.

There was a clear need for a metric that would combine the metrics together and work as your daily coach that tells you how hard you can push today, or whether you should take it easier to avoid overreaching yourself.

Garmin watches had multiple different features focusing on training, sleep, and recovery. However they weren't really talking to each other, and the data was spread to multiple places.

Also, lot of the guidance provided in the watches were reactive, and telling how you have done in the past, but none of the features really provided guidance on how hard you can train today.

Garmin watches had multiple different features focusing on training, sleep, and recovery. However they weren't really talking to each other, and the data was spread to multiple places.

Also, lot of the guidance provided in the watches were reactive, and telling how you have done in the past, but none of the features really provided guidance on how hard you can train today.

How

Feature that combines multiple pieces into one holistic metric

We wanted to create a easy-to-understand metric, that provides you the information on how ready you are to train today.

Feature that provides guidance for you each day

The feature also needs to provide guidance for you on a daily basis and before you are actually heading out to train to inform whether today is the day to push harder, or whether you should take it easier.

User personas

Fitness enthusiasts

People who are enthusiastic about fitness and exercising, but who may need a bit of extra support and guidance to manage their training load, and reach their goals.

Athletes

Athletes who already possess good knowledge about how to achieve their training goals, but who are in need of holistic information about their body and training.

My role

Lead designer

As a lead designer of the product my responsibilities was to be responsible for maintaining the design process from the start to the final product, including discovery & definement, ideation & concepting, evaluation & iteration, and supporting developers with implementation.

Who I collaborated with

Tight cross-functional communication with data engineers, and physiologists

Since this project was heavily based on science, and data. It required almost daily collaboration with physiologists, and data engineers to maintain the scientifical aspect of the feature. Every piece of information provided in feature is backed by the science.

Discovery & Definement

Clear need for a metric that provides a view into users overall health and recovery.

How

Competitor analysis

I conducted competitor research/analysis on what's going on at the market, and it seemed like people are really interested in having further recovery metrics, that goes beyond their training.

Building on top of previous user feedback

Also, me and the team took a closer look into user feedback we had received from our users, and our UX Researchers conducted surverys to find out which areas people would need support on.

There were clear need for more proactive guidance to let athletes know what to do before their training.

Example of one of the competitor solutions on my competitor analysis. I don’t have access to actual research file anymore.

Ideation & Concepting

I conducted ideation workshops to create more ideas and concepts together with the team, and tested them with our researchers to find out what works and what not.

Concepts & Prototypes

Ideation workshops

I conducted ideation workshops with our team to discover different ideas and concepts.

Utilized "How might we" cards, and ideation and concept creation in small groups which was then shared for the others.

Concept testing

I developed the concepts further and together with our UX Researcher we tested them with real users, to see what concepts and aspects were working and what were not.

Note: Also HRV Status concept was built on these concepts.

User journey maps

I created user journey maps to figure out better what are the most important aspects that needed to be solved with the project.

These were also highly beneficial when communicating with different stakeholders, and helped to discuss different pain points and possibilities along the project.

Examples of the similar workshops I've conducted later on various topics

Examples of the concepts I created together with team

Note that I don't have access anymore to original design files so these are recreations.

Your readiness for today is not optimal today based on your training recovery, stress, and sleep levels.

We suggest you either taking a rest day today, or having a recovering activity like Yoga today.

CONCEPT 3

Your readiness for today is not optimal today based on your training recovery, stress, and sleep levels.

We suggest you either taking a rest day today, or having a recovering activity like Yoga today.

CONCEPT 2 - ADAPTIVE TRAINING PLAN

Your readiness for today is not optimal today based on your training recovery, stress, and sleep levels.

We suggest you either taking a rest day today, or having a recovering activity like Yoga today.

CONCEPT 1 - HOLISTIC COACH

We wanted to be sure that different UI's were not affecting the results too much, so we tested concepts with these comic strips that I created.

Example of the user journey mapping I did during the project.

Note that I don't have access anymore to original design files so this is a recreation.

Evaluation & Iteration

Concepts were taken further and through few rounds of concept testing we landed with the Training Readiness. It was well liked and feedback was really positive.

How

Concept testing

The concepts were tested on a higher level to find what aspects were liked and what were not. From these foundings we created few final features that was then finetuned and eventually implemented later on.

E.g. Training Readiness & HRV Status

Feature testing

After landing with the concepts we went deeper with the HRV Status, and created the main flows, and UI's and tested them with our users, to find out what their feelings were.

Test results were also important because they helped us to pitch the feature further to internal decisionmakers.

Iteration

Lot of work to make the contributors make sense and to fit in watch UI

Due to limited screen estate in watch, and the Garmin's design system that the OS is running. There were some difficulties in fitting the contributors in, but eventually I came up with end result that didn't require to build any new components to OS.

You can see it in Final designs section.

Designing and testing what information makes sense for UI

I designed different possibilities for main UI to find out whether users would like to see more verbal information, or numerical metrics.

Results were that the numerical metric was the key information users want to make it easy to compare between days, but they also wanted to have supporting verbal feedback to score.

More user journeys to find all possible corner cases

I mapped more user journeys to find out possible corner cases we have to create designs for.

E.g. How the communication changes if user has already completed exercise today.

Final designs

Based on the earlier work and feedback gathered, I finalized the designs for developer handoff.

How

Figma file with designs

Figma file containing all of the user flows, screens, corner cases, and copy needed for the project.

Note

Garmin features are designed for watch first

My responsibility was to create designs for watches, and then provide wireframes for app team so they can continue to build the feature to app side while I keep supporting them.

Most important information is glanceable, but you are able to access the details - Progressive disclosure.

MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.
MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.
MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.
MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.

MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.
MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.
MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.
MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.

MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.
MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.
MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.
MAIN SCREEN
Quickly see your current Training Readiness communicated with simple 0-100 scale, and combined with color scale and feedback.
CONTRIBUTOR LIST
Access the list of contributors affecting the score and easily spot the ones that needs focus today.
GUIDANCE TO AVOID OVERLOAD
One of the biggest pain points Training Readiness solves can sounds bit counterintuitive when talking about sports watch - Learn when not to train and avoid overloading yourself.
BEAST MODE ON!
One of the early concepts we tested was the concept around indicating when user hits beast mode - Eventually we managed to bake that into Training Readiness in form of Prime readiness.
DYNAMIC GUIDANCE
Together with the team we baked in over 130 feedback phrases to provide guidance that matches your data.

Happy path flow for HRV Status

About

Discovery

Ideation

Evaluation

Final designs

Results

About

Discovery

Ideation

Evaluation

Final designs

Results

As a result Garmin watches got their first holistic training feature that takes also your lifestyle into account.

Feature has received very positive feedback from the users, and is praised in many online forums. It's still one of the key features in new Garmin watches, without any updates.

As a result Garmin watches got their first holistic training feature that takes also your lifestyle into account.

Feature has received very positive feedback from the users, and is praised in many online forums. It's still one of the key features in new Garmin watches, without any updates.

As a result Garmin watches got their first holistic training feature that takes also your lifestyle into account.

Feature has received very positive feedback from the users, and is praised in many online forums. It's still one of the key features in new Garmin watches, without any updates.

Key feature in all of the latest high-end Garmin watches

It's still one of the top features in all of the latest Garmin watches.

To make outstanding UX work, it still needs polished visual design in which I excel as well.

For example you can see it as a first mention in the feature list of Garmin Forerunner 965,

To make outstanding UX work, it still needs polished visual design in which I excel as well.

Key feature in all of the latest high-end Garmin watches

It's still one of the top features in all of the latest Garmin watches.

For example you can see it as a first mention in the feature list of Garmin Forerunner 965,

Helps people to not overload themselves

Especially helpful for many new athletes, who easily overload themselves by exercising too much.

Helps people to not overload themselves

Especially helpful for many new athletes, who easily overload themselves by exercising too much.

Hear it from the users.

"After long enough testing for me with involving it in some races, I fell in love with it (Training Readiness)."
-Reddit comment
"Moved from Apple Watch Ultra to Garmin last week and I love training readiness, body battery and garmins daily suggestion."
-Reddit comment
"HRV and training readiness FR955 is an amazing watch with tons of features and lightweight. I recommend it."
-Reddit comment