Competitive Analysis

Lifesum My Fitness Pal

Lifesum Overview
Key Objectives
Lifesum is a popular health & fitness app that offers
food & workout tracking features as well as progress
insights. The app aims to help users reach their
health fitness goals.

Overall Strategy
Lifesum is an “all in one place” app when it comes to
health and fitness. It allows users to track their exercise
and food intake. Lifesum aims to guide users to make
healthier choices. An example of this is their “food
rating” feature. Each food that is added to the health
diary comes with a food rating and insights as to why
that particular food received that score. If the food
rating score is low, alternative foods are provided as
suggestions for next time.

Market Advantage
Lifesum currently has over 45 million users and is
available on iOS and Apple Watch. It has beautiful UI
and its information architecture is easy to understand.
 Lifesum SWOT Profile
Strengths Weaknesses
• The app UI is modern and beautiful. The app’s use of • The app does not offer customizable meal plans.

bright colors and playful graphics can lead users to feel

at ease with the app and, in turn, make them want to • The app has a limited food database and calorie
use the app.
information is inaccurate in a few foods.

• The app has several meal plans to choose from and • Tracking exercise is limited step count via iOS Health
provides a test to select a plan for a user.
app & selecting from a long list of exercises which
users may find overwhelming.

• The app allows users to connect to the iOS Health app

to record their steps and auto populates their calories • No workout videos or workout content.

burned based on step count.

• The app does not personalize the user’s experience.

• Users can create their own recipes to save and add to For example, there is no health content or
their food diary. recommendations based on the user’s health goals or
status.

• The app provides a vegetable tracker that requires the

user to manually add a serving rather than having the
serving auto populate when a meal with a vegetable
serving is added.

• There is no way to add any notes in the Diary section.

Opportunities Threats
• Including a section with advice, suggestions or articles
based on user’s health goals and needs.
• The app’s limited food database & the inaccurate
calorie counts on some foods can frustrate users and
• Creating a customized experience for users. For lead them to use another app.

example, allowing users to hide calorie count & select

their own goals for vegetable servings or • Lack of health content.

macronutrients.

• The App does not do enough advertising. It relies on

user reviews and a few Youtube sponsorships.

• Adding videos of breathing exercises, guided

meditations and work outs. This will help users with
their health journey when they incorporate the
• The app is not active enough on social media.
practices found in these helpful videos. Users can find
what they want and need within the app rather than
searching outside the app.
MyFitnessPal Key Objectives
Overview My Fitness Pal is an all-in-one fitness app in which a user
can add their daily workout, meals, nutrition goals and
recipes. The app has a wide food database so a user can
accurately add their food calories and macros in a much
faster way than looking up the food info themselves. The app
aims to help users hit their fitness and weight loss goals by
helping them keep up with their workouts and daily food log.

Overall Strategy
My Fitness Pal is one of the most recognizable fitness apps
and has about 200 million downloads world wide. The app’s
strategy is to provide many options for users when inputting
their information. For example, if you want to add your
exercise for the day, the app will ask you for the specific
work out category. Was the workout cardio or strength
training? How many reps did you complete? The app will
also calculate the calories burned based on the work out
information logged. The app is very much about specificity
when it comes to the user adding information. The app also
has one of the largest food databases, which makes it fast
and convenient to add foods and see calories and macros.
The app also has an extensive amount of health content and
workout tips for users that want to learn more about fitness.

Market Advantage
The app is available for Android and iOS. Its responsive design
is compatible on a smartphone, tablet and desktop. My
Fitness Pal is one of the most recognizable Health and Fitness
apps and ranks at #6 in that category on the App Store.
 SWOT Profile : My Fitness Pal
Strengths Weaknesses
• During onboarding, the app has a long questionnaire
about preferences, lifestyle and goals. Despite this, it does
not tailor the app content specifically to the responses
• The app has an extensive food database so users can
added to that questionnaire. This can be viewed as a
easily add their food without looking up the calories
themselves. This feature makes calorie-counting and food waste of time by users. Some users may even become
tracking less tedious for users.
frustrated with the app before they use it due to this long
survey.

• The app has a lot health and fitness content for users that
want to read more in-depth information on health and • The app is overloaded with information and is poorly
wellness.
organized. Users can view this as overwhelming and
confusing, which can lead them to use another app
• The app records users’ fitness progress. This feature instead.

helps users view where they started on their journey and

how they're doing. This can be a big motivator for many • When adding a workout, there is no option to search for a
users. corresponding video. The video workouts on the app are
very limited and require a user to scroll through the
videos, rather than just typing key words to find what
they’re looking for. Users can become frustrated
especially when they’re used to typing key words to find
what they need.

Opportunities
• Adding more workout videos and workout categories. Having
more workout videos will cater to a wider range of users, and
having more workout categories can be especially helpful for
those that are interested in “beginner” workouts or
categories for users that have an injury or a disability.
exercises are called. I will create new user flows and
• Focusing not only on fitness, but on the mind and body
Threats
• The app has a lot of features that are poorly
organized. It can feel overwhelming for a user just to
add a workout, especially if they are not
knowledgeable or experienced in what certain
add workout categories that are easier to understand
for beginners.

connection that helps improve overall health. Research has

shown connections between the two, and incorporating a • The Diary icon and the + icon on the navigation bar
mind and body approach in an app can help users better are redundant. They both have the same information
maintain their physical health in the long run.
within them, with the exception of a weight category
and status in the + icon. I will better organize the
• Improving the information architecture of the app to make it
navigation in my app and make it easier to complete
easier to navigate. My app design will organize information in
a task.
a way that makes it more enjoyable and easier to navigate.

• Improving the UI of the app to make it more engaging. The

current UI is very dull and just looks like an overload of
simple grey type. My design will add more contrast to the
text to better differentiate sections within a layout.
UX Competitive Analysis

Usability

The apps usability needs major

improvement. It is not immediately obvious
how to add a meal or a work out. I clicked
calories remaining on the Home page and
it took me to Diary, which is where you
add meals and workouts. I wanted to see
where I could look at my profile
information and settings but could not see
an icon that represented either.

I clicked the More icon where I was

presented with a long list of features
and amongst the list was My Profile
and Settings. Although it was not
terribly difficult to find the information I
needed, it was more of a hassle than
other apps I’ve used in the past.
UX Competitive Analysis

Layout
The app layout is cluttered and overloaded with information. The app opens to the
Home page that shows a calories remaining section on the very top of the page.
Below calories remaining, there are several blog posts about fitness and nutrition,
which seem a bit out of place for a home page and almost look like advertisements.
The info provided on each page can also be better organized in a way that not only
makes the user find what they need quicker, but also makes it less overwhelming for
them. What makes the problem worse is that there is not enough contrast between
the text in the app that is meant to differentiate between sections within the same
page. For example, the Diary layout is minimal and organized but can look like a lot of
dull text to the user.

Navigation Structure
The app’s navigation structure is a bit odd. The app opens
up to the Home page which consists of advertisements for
the app and blog posts. It would make more sense to have
the app immediately open up to the Diary section where
you can add food and workouts for the day, which is the
main function of the app. It would also make more sense to
move blog posts and content to a designated section with
an icon name that corresponds to learning.

Next to Diary on the navigation bar, there is a + sign that

feels redundant. It has all the exact same categories to add
that Diary has, with only the addition of adding a new
weight and weight loss status. The More section seems to
be a catch-all section for any other features and info that
did not fit anywhere else in the app. Settings and
Reminders can be found within the long list of features
within the More icon along with Recipes, Privacy Center
and Goals. The information architecture within this section
does not make sense.
 UX Competitive Analysis

Compatibility
The app has a responsive design that
works on phones, tablets and computers.
The app is also available for download on
both iOS and android. All of the app
features are available on the desktop
version. A screenshot of the desktop
version is pictured on the right.

Differentiation
My Fitness Pal is available in several languages and works across several counties. This gives the app a great
market advantage that many other health & fitness apps are lacking. In order to compete with My Fitness Pal, the
app should not only be better organized and more usable, but also cater to the same range of users that My
Fitness Pal covers. The app also has a massive food database, which should also be incorporated in a new
design. My app design would have these important components with better UI, Information architecture and the
addition of a mental health component to improve overall health.

Calls to Action
The app has an onboarding process with a long questionnaire about food preferences, current physical activity
levels and goals. The app asks the user to create an account, but does not ask the user to log in each time they
use the app. There are not many calls to action besides upgrading to a Premium membership, which unlocks app
customization, and deeper nutrition insights.