Silofit is an innovative start-up specializing in on-demand fitness spaces and mobile app development. They convert small offices in Montreal and Toronto into private micro-gyms called Silos, which can be rented by the hour using the Silofit iOS and Android apps. Initially targeting busy professionals looking to squeeze in a workout in their schedules, Silofit expanded its services to provide an ecosystem for fitness professionals managing their businesses. Joining the Silofit team as the second designer, my responsibilities included conducting a comprehensive audit of the two Silofit mobile apps, designing new app features and a new website to better address fitness professionals’ needs, and establishing the Silofit design system’s foundations to ensure cohesive brand and communication. This collaborative effort involved working closely with the Product, Engineering, Brand, and Leadership teams.
From its debut in 2017, the Silofit brand underwent multiple revisions to adapt to evolving insights and shifting business priorities. However, frequent changes and pivots may confuse both gym-goers and fitness trainers, leading to a lack of trust and reluctance to try the service. With aspirations for growth and expansion, the company faced the challenge of establishing its customer base in a competitive and crowded industry, made worse by post-pandemic economic constraints.
Below is an example of one of the early iterations through which the main Silofit mobile app went, as explained in more detail by Johan Rosell, Silofit’s co-founder and Head of Design. Initially, a beige color scheme was implemented to evoke a sense of mindfulness. This was later replaced with a darker palette more aligned with the fitness market’s trends in 2021.
One of my first mandates was to develop a visual language for the company’s various digital products based on the new branding strategy. I started laying the foundations for a design system to help us reach our goal more efficiently and ensure brand cohesiveness. In parallel, the Brand team was in the final stages of creating the company’s new brand book, which became our primary guide and played a pivotal role in establishing the Silofit visual language across digital platforms (apps, website, and social media communication). It also informed our work on the design system, from the company’s values and tone of voice to our design principles, patterns and components.
As part of Silofit’s new visual language, I developed two sets of illustrative icons and product illustrations to help us convey the brand personality in the mobile apps and differentiate Silofit’s products from the competition.
One of Silofit’s core values is fostering collaboration and creativity, knowing that working as a unified team will help achieve greater success. To communicate this message to the fitness communities, I helped our Brand and Marketing teams with various visual design initiatives and materials to be published on Silofit’s channels of communication:
→ Graphic assets and animations for Instagram and other social media accounts;
→ Presentations material;
→ Graphic assets for the Apple and Android stores.
Given its recent branding updates and two-sided market strategy, Silofit’s website required a comprehensive overhaul in both visual and content aspects to effectively communicate its offerings to both gym-goers and fitness professionals, with a heightened emphasis on the latter.
We redesigned the website to be fully responsive, comprising five pages: Homepage, About Silofit, Trainers page, Clients page and a trainers list index. The updated homepage also showed clearer messaging conveying Silofit’s value proposition to fitness professionals.
Silofit originated from the concept of providing a solution for busy professionals seeking to incorporate workouts into their tight schedules without committing to a gym membership. Further market and user research soon revealed an opportunity to support fitness and wellness professionals in managing their businesses and increasing their earnings. To address this, Silofit introduced a dedicated Pro app, enabling fitness professionals utilizing Silofit private gyms (Silos) to enhance the efficiency of managing their schedules and responding to their clients’ workout requests.
I began contributing to the core user flows, focusing on the onboarding and profile setup experiences for both apps. Our initial emphasis was on the gym-goer persona, guiding users through the process of downloading the Silofit app, creating a personal account, and setting up their profile using an onboarding wizard and step-by-step process. Our primary objective was to update the UI components to align with Silofit’s recent rebranding in the apps, keeping UX optimization recommendations for the next phase.
The second flow focused on the journey of fitness professionals, involving downloading the Silofit Pro app, creating an account, and setting up their profile. Leveraging the onboarding wizard from the Silofit app, our goal was to encourage trainers to provide comprehensive information, to establish trust and professionalism. However, we rapidly recognized that this approach resulted in an excessively lengthy onboarding process.
The objective of both onboarding and setup flows was to elevate the initial user experience with Silofit apps and boost active user acquisition. However, analytics data showed a massive drop in engagement after signing up: the setup wizard’s excessive steps were overwhelming and discouraged users before they could book a Silo for a workout session through the app.
Recognizing the inherent difficulty in motivating users to schedule and attend a workout, we acknowledge the need to let our users cross that onboarding finish line much faster. Ultimately, our onboarding and setup process should resemble a light warm-up, not a full HIIT workout!
To address these concerns, we brainstormed and formulated several UX recommendations for an upcoming iteration:
→ Allow users to create an account and explore the apps before prompting them to complete their profile;
→ Clearly communicate the value and benefits of completing your profile;
→ Provide transparency about the necessity of certain information, such as location tracking;
→ Ensure all optional steps are visibly skippable or consider relocating them to another part of the user’s journey, like the “Settings” menu.
The Design team consistently collaborated with Jennifer, our dedicated UX researcher, on various journey mapping and brainstorming workshops, such as the Crazy 8 framework. These sessions helped us refine our understanding of our dual target audience (gym-goers and fitness professionals), and improved our problem-framing and ideation process for the company’s next focus: empowering personal trainers to grow their business and expand their clientele through the Silofit Pro model.
By subscribing to Silofit Pro for a monthly fee, trainers benefited from several advantages, like access to unlimited Silos. To make subscriptions a worthy investment for both trainers and Silofit’s businesses, we introduced two new features within the Silofit app, designed to promote trainers to “Silo-goers” and ultimately increase user retention in both apps:
→ Add a personal trainer to your Silo booking;
→ Purchase a trainer’s intro offers package and use it to cover the costs of your next scheduled session.
In less than six months, our small Design team (initially consisting of two and later expanding to three designers) achieved substantial milestones and established solid foundations for the company in terms of visual language, branding, design process and design operations. This was my first time joining an early-stage start-up, and working closely with Johan, Silofit’s co-founder and Head of the Design team at the time, proved to be an enriching experience that expanded my understanding of the startup landscape. I gained valuable insights into the dynamics of entrepreneurship, mobile app design and development, as well as the constraints and challenges inherent in such an environment. Unfortunately, Silofit officially closed its doors in August 2023 amid a sector-wide downturn for Canadian technology start-ups.
