SportsArt Blog

Heading into IHRSA, I was really looking forward to seeing what was coming from all of the manufacturers regarding user interface on cardio equipment. The industry has been focusing hard on user interface in the past few years so this show was a good litmus test. As I walked the floor and saw what other companies had to offer, it really made it obvious why the mainstream technology industry thinks fitness equipment has some of the worst user interfaces in the world.

User Experience (UX) is the king of the kingdom. It's what can make a mediocre product exceptional, and a great product terrible. The mistake is thinking just about the product itself, and not about how people around it are going to interact with it. It's also a common misconception that User Interface (UI) is the same as UX. While they definitely work together, they're not the same. UI is the new Ferrari sitting at a racetrack; UX is the feeling you get when you drive the Ferrari around the track. UI also tends to start and end with the user, while UX encompasses everyone who comes into contact with the product in any meaningful way, from salesmen to service people, from the person who buys it to the person who uses it. And as you become better at UX, it starts expanding out beyond just the product at hand into the whole experience.

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, it made me think about one of the biggest advancements that technology has brought to the fitness industry. At the high level is in data collection - and this data has in turn helped us to better understand not only human physiology in general, but how each individual can maximize their efforts. But for me, at the heart of this revolution (pun intended) is the ability to track an individual’s heart rate. It helps indicate physical fitness, recovery, perceived effort, and opened a new chapter in the way people trained. Before we go much further, let's talk about the two primary methods of getting heart rate data today, and what some of the pros and cons of each are.