Strava UI Design for the Modern Athlete

The Strava UI design is a crucial aspect of the platform's success, providing a user-friendly interface that helps athletes track their progress and connect with the community.

Strava's design team aimed to create a seamless experience for athletes, with a focus on simplicity and ease of use.

One of the key features of Strava's UI design is the use of colors to convey different types of activities.

Green is used for running, blue for cycling, and purple for swimming.

The design of the activity feed is also noteworthy, with a clean and minimalistic layout that makes it easy to scan through recent activities.

This feed is a key part of the Strava experience, allowing athletes to see how their friends and followers are doing.

The design process for Strava's UI involved a deep understanding of their target audience.

Strava's designers conducted user research to identify key pain points and behaviors, which informed their design decisions.

This research revealed that athletes want to be able to easily track their progress and compete with others.

The design team implemented a clean and intuitive layout that makes it easy for users to navigate and find the information they need.

Strava's UI also incorporates a variety of visual elements, such as charts and graphs, to help users understand their performance data.

Design Stories is a crucial part of the design process, and it's where we get to bring our ideas to life. We've identified key behaviors, needs, and motivators, and now it's time to develop epics and supporting design stories.

One of the first design stories we developed was for the User Does Prescribed Workout feature. This feature is all about helping users stay on track with their fitness goals. Here are some of the key behaviors and features we identified for this story:

These behaviors and features are all designed to help users stay motivated and engaged with their fitness goals. By making it easy to view their training plans, start and track their workouts, and share their progress, we can help users achieve their goals and stay on track.

Sketching is a crucial part of the design process. It allows designers to explore ideas and start a dialogue.

Hand sketching with pen and paper is a favorite part of the design process for some. It's a way to produce a product, but also to explore ideas and start a dialogue.

Four different design patterns for interacting with the training plan calendar and workout details in STRAVA PRO+ were explored through hand sketches. These included a Grid Calendar View, a Vertical Scrolling List View, a Horizontal Scroll (Carousel) View, and a Folder View (Not Shown).

Here are the four design pattern concepts:

The iterative sketch process was completed before moving on to wireframes.

User experience is crucial in Strava UI design. To improve athletes' experience, a user flow was chosen to help them find the best suitable route for their next journey.

A heuristic evaluation is a method used to find potential usability issues within the existing user flow. This helps identify areas for improvement to create a better user experience.

To improve the user experience, it's essential to study the user flow. A user flow is a visual representation of the steps a user takes to complete a task, and it's a crucial aspect of user experience design.

By doing a heuristic evaluation, you can identify potential usability issues within the existing user flow. This involves analyzing the flow to see if it's intuitive, easy to use, and meets the user's needs.

Improving athletes' experience is a key goal in user flow design. For instance, a user flow might focus on helping athletes find the best suitable route for their next journey.

A heuristic evaluation can help you identify issues in the existing user flow, such as unclear navigation or inconsistent design elements. This can inform the design of a new user flow that addresses these issues and provides a better experience for the user.

Designing a user flow requires considering the user's goals and motivations. In the case of athletes, the goal might be to find a route that meets their specific training needs.

By understanding the user's goals and motivations, you can design a user flow that is intuitive and easy to use, even for users who are not familiar with the application.

The profile page is a crucial part of the user experience, and it's essential to make it distinct from the progress page.

The top third of the profile page has been preserved from the original, with some enhancements to type size and positioning.

The real changes happen in the lower 2/3 of the page, where the 12-week graph has been replaced with one-week bar graphs, split up by activity type.

This change allows for recent data to be available to both the user and their followers, while keeping historical data private.

Historical data is now found on the "history" page, where it's kept separate from the current week's data.

Expand your knowledge: Data Lake Design

Strava's UI design is built around simplicity and clarity, making it easy to navigate and use. The app's clean design allows users to focus on their fitness goals.

One of the standout features of Strava's UI is its use of color-coding to differentiate between various types of activities. This visual cue helps users quickly identify the type of activity they're viewing.

The app's dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of a user's progress, including their total distance, calories burned, and average pace. This information is presented in a clear and concise manner, making it easy to track progress over time.

Strava's UI also includes a feature that highlights users' achievements, such as completing a certain number of workouts or reaching a new personal best. This motivational aspect helps users stay engaged and motivated to continue their fitness journey.

Task flow was a top priority to integrate new STRAVA PRO+ functionality into the existing task flows in the STRAVA iPhone app.

The task flow was designed to be both informative and informed by user stories, which presented a unique challenge. I had to go through several iterations to arrive at a solid foundation.

The final version of the STRAVA PRO+ task flow was created with the new functionality in orange and the existing functionality in blue. This visual representation helped to identify areas where integration was needed.

Viewing a completed activity, such as a workout with a map, was a key part of the task flow. This involved referencing a workout from the Record Activity Screen and viewing the Training Plan.

Route planning is a crucial feature for athletes, and the new design aims to improve their experience. The core functionality remains the same, but there are some notable changes.

The new layout features a large, collapsable panel on the left side of the screen, replacing the large bottom panel and search bar setup. This change is intended to provide a more streamlined user experience.

Users will now have more control over the routes generated by the algorithm with the addition of sliders for Distance, Vertical feet, and Time. By providing 2 of 3 inputs, users can generate a third input and a route.

The “Draw your own route” function is still available and works the same, giving users the flexibility to create their own routes. This feature is a great option for athletes who want to customize their routes.

The heart rate sensor and beacon features have been removed from the record screen, but they are not gone entirely. They can be viewed in settings, located in the top right corner of the screen.

The "record" feature is designed with simplicity in mind, and I've made some tweaks to make it even easier to use.

I've made the "start" button much larger, which makes it easier to access with one hand, especially for right-handed people. This was a deliberate design choice to improve user experience.

The layout has been adjusted to make the feature more intuitive. Three of the five icons have been replaced with text-based buttons for added clarity.

To get started with Strava UI design, you'll need to take ownership of the design process from insight to delivery. As a Senior Product Designer II, you'll be responsible for translating data and research into clear design decisions.

You'll need to learn how to connect design decisions to business strategy to drive product impact. This is a key aspect of the role, as mentioned in the job description.

Start by understanding how to create polished mobile experiences, a key part of the Senior Product Designer II's job. This will involve rapidly prototyping to validate ideas.

Consider reading: Webflow Designer

To modernize Strava's design language and interaction patterns, you'll need to contribute as a strategic design voice in roadmap planning. This will help shape the direction of the product.

You'll be working with data and research to make informed design decisions. This will help you create designs that support growth and drive product impact.