No, I did not ‘pause’ my workout!

by Veronica-Meuris

I’m here at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Atlanta, Georgia this week for the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) conference. I woke up Tuesday morning bright and early, geared up for a great day of tutorials and discussions. Before that though, being a creature of habit, I headed to the fitness centre for my morning workout.

At home, my workouts alternate between running and elliptical training so here in Atlanta, I thought I’d switch it up a bit – I tried the recumbent bike. They have a reclined position whereby your legs are out in front of you, and have nice large padded seats and back support.

The bike itself was very comfortable but the touch display design was an entirely different matter. At intervals while biking, I pushed the ‘increase intensity’ arrow to make it harder to pedal. Every time, and I mean – every time I did this, I unintentionally paused my workout. After the 6^th time, I left the intensity button alone and just pedaled faster to get my heart rate up…

The ‘increase intensity’ arrow is nestled between the ‘decrease intensity’ arrow and the ‘Pause’ button. The problem seems to be the size of the ‘Pause’ hit zone. It’s enormous and extends considerably into the ‘increase intensity’ zone.

 

What’s maddening about this design and or its implementation however is that yes, it’s hard to be exact when you’re tired and wanting to decrease intensity or to pause your workout. So – increase the hit zones that address this use case then. Alternatively, swap the order of the intensity arrows so that the ‘Pause’ and ‘decrease intensity’ buttons share their enormous hit zones that when pressed (intentionally or accidentally), give riders a chance to slow down and catch their breath.

Riders though who are still raring to go and want to keep increasing the intensity are probably better able to access a hit zone the size of their finger. After all, they’re presumably feeling good and have the ability to be more precise in what they’re pressing – if they weren’t in full control, they wouldn’t be increasing the intensity!

Now, I know it is bad form to spy on people working out beside you but I couldn’t help myself – after my 6^th false start, I was frustrated. I watched the man beside me encounter the same problem – he too had to tell the bike that, ‘yes, he wanted to resume his workout’ after unintentionally pausing it 9 times over the course of 30 minutes. He appeared equally frustrated and left shortly thereafter.

Tomorrow, it’s the treadmill for me, no doubt about it.