Active branding
Designed a branded fitness watch app with phone-based onboarding to drive daily engagement through movement
Process & Approach
The phone app handled everything that required context — onboarding, skill assessment, progress tracking and adjustments. A 30 second fitness test sorted users into levels before they made a single choice, removing friction from the start. The watch then took over for the daily loop, keeping interactions minimal and fast. All activity synced back to the phone where the fuller picture lived.
The watch was designed to do one thing well: deliver a daily exercise with minimal friction. Alert, exercise, record, done. Keeping interactions constrained to the wrist meant every decision that required context stayed on the phone. Lean testing with fitness experts and Degree employees validated the split before we committed to build, and following platform documentation closely kept the turnaround fast without sacrificing quality.
industry
Fitness, iOS
timeframe
3 months
team
Design lead · fitness editor/strategist · dev specialist · head of design
skills & tools
Product design · UI and interaction design · watchOS design · phone to watch UX · prototyping · lean testing
The daily exercise delivered to the wrist at a chosen time, keeping the Degree brand present in users' most active moments.
The full watch system: animated exercise, voice-tracked reps, progress goals and a branded completion screen designed to reinforce the daily habit.
Watch-based workout timer designed for eyes-down use during exercise, keeping sessions guided without requiring the user to touch the screen.
Audio recording captured effort at the end of each session, syncing progress back to the phone and closing the daily loop.
What Shipped
Paired phone and watch app launched on schedule within 3 months
Skill-based onboarding replaced manual level selection across all user flows
30 day stamina challenge with daily alert, exercise, audio record and progress tracking
Degree called it a success with thousands of users in the first months
What I'd do differently
Build completion rate and drop-off tracking in from day one
More rounds of testing on the daily watch loop before launch
Track how often users chose later and whether they came back to complete
Design for longer term retention beyond the 30 day program from the start
