Product design intern at Freeletics

I led design at the wearables team to
launch on-device workout completion.

It increased Apple Watch run workouts by 20%.

Role
Design, Research, Testing
Team
1 Engineer, 1 PM
Duration
6 weeks

Life is hard enough after 400m sprint intervals.

Freeletics workout vibe and post-run context
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Problem

Switching devices to finish the workout doesn't make it easier.

Apple Watch users had to go on their phone to log a session and give workout feedback.

Run workout

Workout

Rate run

Feedback

Cooldown

Next set

Rate cooldown
and log workouts

Feedback

Opportunity

The obvious solution was to bring it all to the watch.

Initially scoped as a straightforward adaptation of the existing mobile flow in collaboration with the PM.

Opportunity flow frame 1
Opportunity flow frame 2
Opportunity flow frame 3
Opportunity flow frame 4

Research

But we need real, sweaty workouts to work it all out.

Sometimes research means hitting the office gym. Besides working out myself, I interviewed people right as they completed their training with wearables, often still out of breath.

Freeletics office-gym workout research session used to evaluate post-workout Apple Watch interaction.
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Key Insight

Physical exertion changes how interactions feel.

Exhaustion, sweat and jittery hands made even simple interactions feel disproportionately hard on a tiny watch screen .

01

High motion

Jittery hands make small buttons and text hard to use right after a set.

02

Low attention

When exhausted, users do not want to spend extra time logging every workout.

03

Small screen

Sweaty fingers make touch unreliable. Dense controls on a tiny screen break flow.

Reframe

So wearables should create their own interactions, not copy phones.

The feedback flow had to be redesigned for a form factor used while fatigued, moving, and low on attention.

Freeletics Apple Watch interaction explorations used to reframe the feedback model.

Solution

Bringing moments of joy to a repetitive flow.

I cut the happy path down to just three taps, replaced text-heavy choices with emojis and enlarged inputs and used crown rotation as input,.

Run feedback flow frame 1
Run feedback flow frame 2
Run feedback flow frame 3
Run feedback flow frame 4

Implementation

While making sure it could actually be built.

Embedded with engineering, I worked through feasibility and interaction tradeoffs to refine patterns like crown rotation, motion, and feedback states.

Impact

The redesign improved both usability and retention.

Run engagement

↑20%

Interaction steps

↓90%

↑

Apple Watch retention among active runners

What I learned:
Real-world context is everything in wearables interaction design.