A New Approach To Goals

Apr 7, 2010

We recently noticed that users are setting goals exponentially better then there current result. For example, a person with a 12 minute Fran is setting a goal for a sub 3 minute Fran. Is that a goal or a dream? We think realistic goals are ones that you can achieve within a month or two. Although we like our goals feature we realize something has to be done. Below are some thoughts we are using to redesign and restructure the goals feature.

Time Based

Decide when you are going to achieve your goal. We think this will help set more realistic goals. You have to get to point “B” before you go from point “A” to point “C”. When you set a goal you should keep that in mind. There has to be a point where you either achieved or failed your goal.

Simple Design, But Constant Reminder

-Show goals on user’s calendar
-Coach/Trainer can see and set goals
-There should be one place where a user can view and set goals.

Goals Limit (Need Input From You Guys)

We have been discussing this and going back and forth. We feel that it’s counter productive to set too many goals. The idea is to set goals, achieve them and then set more. We are leaning towards 5 goals (not including days worked out per week and weight/lean mass). This way, depending on your privacy, your trainer and other members can see what you are concentrating on and encourage you. We would love to hear your thoughts on this.

We update the site once a week and will roll this feature out either this friday night or next friday night. Why? Well, according to our stats, you probably don’t work out on friday night.

Development Screen Shots (Final product will be different)

goal_calendar

goal_active

goal_achieved

6 responses to “A New Approach To Goals”

Mike

April 7, 2010 at 12:06 pm

Goals are great, but action steps required to hit goals would be a great feature…

If goal is 50 pushups (or double unders) in a minute; someone that can only do 10 is not going to get there unless they practice pushups (or double unders) on a somewhat regualar basis. Having daily reminders of goal oriented activity required would be great.
Bryan Mashburn

April 7, 2010 at 1:11 pm

My suggestion would be to have different type of goals with different time frames.

Short Term
Medium Term
Long Term

So say short term is with in the next month I want to be able to do 10 double unders.

Then say medium term anywhere from 2 months to 6 months I want to be able to do 50 double unders in a minute.

Last long term anywhere from 7 months to a year I want to be able to do 200 double unders without stopping.

I dont know how to do this on the web but that is my thoughts. I even think that you don’t need to have short, medium and long term goals for the same exercise, they can be whatever the person wants.
Dave C.

April 7, 2010 at 8:43 pm

First, decide if the resource should be a coaching mechanism, or simply a way to store and share stats. I think most Internet sites work best when they let the users decide how they want to use it, and then facilitate what they’re trying to do. Creating restrictions based on what “you” think is appropriate will just annoy people (at worst) and limit functionality (at best).
Matthew Myers

April 8, 2010 at 7:53 am

I think the time frame for goals sounds like a good idea. It would be really cool if you could set a long term goal (say for 6 months) and based on your current status somehow plot (even linear since its simple) what your projected progress needs to be over time in order to reach that goal by that date. So if my goal is to have 50 pullups in 6 months, and I’m at 10 right now, logically I need to be getting close to 30 after 3 months, etc. Also, I wouldn’t limit the goals you can set. I know personally that I like setting goals for the movements and the major crossfit workouts. Limiting me would just be a hindrance more than anything. Thanks!
moe

April 8, 2010 at 8:24 am

@Mike: That seems interesting. Although we don’t want to throw too many things in your face everyday. However, this does relate to another feature we got in the works!

@Bryan: We want to add short and long term goals but probably not in this roll out.

@Dave C: We want to let coaches set goals but also let users set their own. Perhaps a coach can verbally tell a member of their gym to set a goal later on the site. We don’t want to limit functionality or annoy people. Our focus is to encourage people to set realistic goals, something that is not happening now. I do, however, think that restriction isn’t always a bad thing. A WOD restricts a gyms focus to one workout. Sure you might do other smaller workouts but the focus is on the WOD. I suppose this goes back to your coach/user feature. For this version we won’t be limiting anyone. Let’s see how it goes. Btw, checked out your site and I’m loving the Mysql + Jquery. Every mess with Rails? (might want to take that offline and email me).

@Matt: Awesome idea. We will def bring that up during our next version.

Thanks for the feedback guys, means a lot.
kdasilva

April 9, 2010 at 2:18 am

I’m not a fan of the limitations on number of goals. As a user I may set a goal for Annie, but I have no idea when it will come up next. I’ve now taken up 1 of my 5 goals for a WOD that I have no control as to when it would come up next, so I can’t realistically set a target date. This would prevent me from having a goal for each of the named WODs that I’ve completed and want to improve. I think the limitation would end up limiting me to only being able to set goals for the extra work that I can do outside of the scope of a WOD (ME push-up, pull-ups, barbell lifts, DUs, etc).

I do like the idea of trying to encourage users to set realistic goals. I would think that a pop-up message could work prompting the user “are you sure…” if the goal is beyond a certain threshold. Although, I don’t know if this is really in keeping with the look and feel of the site.

Maybe have “goals” and “targets”.

A goal would be a threshold that I am actively working towards achieving (20 unbroken kips, 400 lb deadlift) – these could be limited in number since I can only realistically work on X number of these types of goals.

Targets would be thresholds for WODs for times that I want to achieve (Sub 3:00 Fran, 1000 lb CFT, etc). I should be able to set an “unlimited” number of workout targets (one per workout).

A user could choose to set a goal and a target for a <3:00 Fran, if they chose to do so, but it would take up one of their X number of goals.