Improvement Potential of Business Models and Usability of Fitness

Apps: Results of Expert Interviews and a User Study

Leon Griesch

and Kurt Sandkuhl

Institute of Computer Science, Rostock University, Albert-Enstein-Str. 22, 18059 Rostock, Germany

Keywords: Fitness App, Usability, Business Model.

Abstract: Mobile applications (apps) supporting individual users in their personal fitness have received growing interest

on the user side and in the research community. The value offered to fitness app users in general consists of

support for changing attitude and behaviour towards a healthy lifestyle and maintaining this behaviour. Work

presented in this paper aims at contributing to this field by focusing on the following main research question:

what improvement potential exists for fitness apps that at the same time are contributing to the business model

and desired from a user’s perspective? The contributions of this paper are (1) market and functionality analysis

of fitness apps, (2) results of expert interviews on functionality and scenarios with business model

improvement potential, and (3) results of a user study on desired improvements from a usability perspective.

1 INTRODUCTION

Mobile applications (apps) supporting individual

users in their personal fitness, including healthy

nutrition and monitoring of health parameters (cf.

Section 2.1), have undergone considerable

development in the last years. The functionality of

such apps continuously grows, integration with other

apps improves, and the number of users increases.

Some scholars believe that this trend is related to the

“quantified self” movement (Swan, 2013) and the

growing importance of the mobile health sector

(Martinez & López-Coronado, 2013).

From an economic perspective, fitness apps and

their business models are part of the mobile business

sector and rely on the identification of an individual

user based on her/his mobile device and permanent

use (i.e., “24/7”) of the device (Wirtz, 2001). The

value offered to the fitness app user, in general,

supports changing attitude and behaviour towards

healthy lifestyle and maintaining or eliciting this

behaviour. In practice, this materializes in goal setting

and self-monitoring in combination with social

learning, competition with other members of the

fitness community, reward mechanisms, provision of

supportive content (training instructions, recipes),

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1946-2016

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7431-8412

connection to other actors (personal trainer, nutrition

coach) or other elements of established business-to-

consumer business models. However, this value

offering shows service characteristics according to

service-dominant logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2008),

particularly the need for cooperation with the user.

Only if the user provides information about the own

goals and information relevant for self-monitoring

(e.g., what, and how much food was consumed?), can

the fitness app be supportive. Functionalities

supporting this data capture are subject to research.

The growth of the fitness app sector also is

reflected in a more academic research in the field.

(Liu & Avello, 2021) showed an increase in the

number of academic publications with focus on

medicine, computer science, and health sciences.

However, this work also should a lack of research on

business models: less than 4% of all publications

were related to business, management and

economics, and the keyword “business model” did

not occur in any paper. Our work aims to contribute

to a better understanding of the business improvement

potential for fitness apps by focusing on the user

perspective. The main research question is: what

improvement potential exists for fitness apps that at

the same time are contributing to the business model

and desired from a users’ perspective?

514

Griesch, L. and Sandkuhl, K.

Improvement Potential of Business Models and Usability of Fitness Apps: Results of Expert Interviews and a User Study.

DOI: 10.5220/0011780600003414

In Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2023) - Volume 5: HEALTHINF, pages 514-521

ISBN: 978-989-758-631-6; ISSN: 2184-4305

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

From a market and function analysis of fitness

apps, we use expert interviews to identify areas for

utility and business model improvement. The “voice

of experts” afterwards is contrasted and refined by the

“voice of the users”. Here, we conduct an experiment

with a group of users and four different fitness apps.

The contributions of this paper are (1) market and

functionality analysis of fitness apps, (2) results of

expert interviews on functionality and scenarios with

business model improvement potential, and (3)

results of a user study on desired improvements from

a usability perspective. Section 2 discusses related

work from fitness apps, business models and

usability. Section 3 introduces the research

methodology used in the paper. Section 4 contains the

results of the market analysis. Section 5 presents the

approach and results of the expert interviews. Section

6 focuses on the user study. Section 7 discusses

limitations, conclusions and future work.

2 BACKGROUND AND RELATED

WORK

2.1 Fitness Apps

Fitness apps, in general, are concerned with the self-

monitoring of healthy habits of individuals within the

context of adopting healthy lifestyles or disease

prevention habits. This is often implemented through

commercial apps developed without medical

administrations supervision. Not subject of this study

but often with overlapping functionality areas are

mobile health apps in professional medical practices,

both on the side of doctors and patients and usually

involving the relationships between doctors and their

patients.

“Fitness” as a term has several meanings: fitness,

in general, refers to a good state of vitality and

physical well-being (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014);

the term also refers to the practice of physical exercise

to gain or maintain good body. Within Health-Related

Physical Fitness (HRPF), fitness is defined as a set of

a person’s abilities to perform certain physical

activities and to perform daily tasks, and the capacity

to reduce the risk of diseases (Leask et al., 2015).

The use of mobile devices and apps has become a

key factor in helping individuals in the adoption of

healthy lifestyles. Fitness apps have been found to

offer a great potential to be effective due to the ability

to support on healthy habits at a low operating cost

(Blackman et al., 2013).

Work by (Oyibo & Vassileva, 2021) showed that the

higher the perceived usefulness of a fitness app by

users is, the more likely they are to be persuaded by

the app and its features, such as goal-setting and self-

monitoring. The higher the perceived aesthetics is, the

more likely the users are persuaded by features such

as competition and social learning. Similar results

were achieved in the investigation of (Cai et al., 2022).

2.2 Business Models

At its core, a business model fulfils two important

functions: value creation and value capture

(Chesbrough, 2010). In the last decade, many

definitions for the concept of business model have

been proposed, but we limit the presentation in this

paper to Business Model Canvas (BMC) as it shows

typical business model aspects relevant for fitness

apps. The BMC approach by Osterwalder and

Pigneur includes building blocks for the four most

important areas of a business: customers, offerings,

infrastructure, and financial viability (Osterwalder &

Pigneur, 2010). Each building block of the Business

Model Canvas is explained below:

 Key partners describe the network of suppliers

and other partners contributing to the business

model’s success.

 Key activities must be undertaken to make a

business model work.

 Key resources represent important assets

essential to the business model's success. They

can be physical, intellectual, human, and

financial.

 Cost structure circumscribes all due costs

incurred in the execution of a business model

assigned to the term cost structure.

 Customer relationships define the type of

relationship a company enters into with

specific customer segments for customer

acquisition, customer care, and sales growth.

 Customer segments are defined by the

customer segments, which include the target

groups a company wants to reach with its

product or service.

 Value proposition describes the package of

products and services that creates value for a

specific customer segment.

 Channels include communication, distribution

or sales channels through which a company

reaches its customer segments and

communicates its value proposition.

Revenue streams are income that a company draws

from each customer segment grouped under revenue

streams.

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515

2.3 Usability and Technology

Acceptance

Usability combines characteristics of user-

friendliness, usability, usability and user quality. ISO

9241-210 (Bevan et al., 2015) defines usability as

"the extent to which a product, system or service can

be used by specific users in a specific application

context to achieve specific goals effectively,

efficiently and satisfactorily". The easier and more

intuitive an app can guide users to their personal

goals, the more user-friendly that app will be

perceived by its users. Nielsen's usability model

(Nielsen, 1992) characterizes five attributes of

usability that help to sharpen the concept of usability:

 Efficiency: resources expended to accurately

perform a task to achieve the user's goals.

 Learnability: The ease with which the system

can be learned so that the user can use it to

perform tasks in the shortest possible time.

 Satisfaction: the product should provide

comfort and give the user a positive attitude

towards its use.

 Errors: The error rate of the system should be

as low as possible so that the user makes as few

errors as possible when using the system. If

errors do occur, they should be easy to fix.

 Memorability: The system should be so easy to

remember that even a casual user who starts

using it after a long time does not have to

struggle to learn from the beginning.

Both Nielsen and ISO see the components that

enable efficient and effective operation of the product

as central, but equally point to the essentiality of

satisfaction as an emotional component during use.

The investigation of technology acceptance is subject

of various models. One model that stands out due to

the frequency of its application is the Technology

Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1985). It consists

of the constructs Perceived Usefulness, Perceived

Ease of Use, both of which act on the construct

Attitude toward Using. This attitude, together with

perceived usefulness, ultimately determines

"Behavioural Intention to Use.".

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research strategy for work presented in this paper

consisted of four steps. The first step was analysing

existing work in the field to confirm problem

relevance and the need for additional work. The

results of this step are visible in sections 1 and 2. The

following three steps were:

Step 1: Market analysis of fitness apps and their

value proposition (Section 4.1)

What fitness apps are economically successful

and what value proposition do they offer? As

economically successful, we consider fitness apps

with many users and long market presence.

Regarding value proposition, we focus on

functionalities offered and aim at selecting apps with

different value propositions in order to contrast them?

The result of this analysis step was a substantial list

of fitness apps with largely overlapping

functionalities, i.e. the differences in value

proposition is hidden in the way the functionalities

are implemented, their application processes and their

ease of use.

Step 2: Determining the focus of usability and

potential analysis (Section 4.2)

What functionalities and application processes

are essential for the success of fitness apps and at the

same time show clear improvement potential –

either because their usability are pain-points from a

user perspective or their functionality is not

sufficient from the business model perspective?

This was the core question of an expert study

performed in step 3 with experts for fitness apps and

their business models. One of the results was, what

application scenarios to select for the user study

from a business model perspective.

Step 3: Preparation, execution and evaluation of

the UX and potential analysis (Section 4.3)

The application scenarios resulting from the

expert interviews were the focus of a user study

including 22 users and four different fitness apps. All

users were new to fitness apps. The core idea was to

investigate, how the usability could be improved in

thee identified application scenarios of high relevance

to the business models.

4 RESULTS

4.1 Fitness Apps Market Analysis

The analysis of fitness apps started from the rankings

in app-stores. The focus was on apps with a

substantial number of users and availability for the

general public, which meant exclusion of fitness apps

for specific health insurances or company-internal

ones. Furthermore, we only included apps supporting

both, nutrition and training. Figure 1 shows details of

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516

the identified apps. One result of the analysis were the

following functional areas, each of which was present

in several or all apps and was the starting point for the

expert interviews and user study:

1. tracking of food intake: food intake at every

meal can be entered manually by the user, often based

on a food database. Some apps also offer to identify

products using a barcode scanner.

2. Measurement of the own training units: many

fitness apps can capture sporting activities within the

app. Sporting activities are intended to support a

healthy lifestyle and to reach the desired weight. For

this purpose, the apps include a pedometer or a way

to track sports, such as jogging or swimming

including calorie consumption.

3. Courses given by experts: some apps offer the

feature of courses provided by experts specifically for

the user. No distinction is made here whether the

courses concern exercise, healthy eating, healthy

lifestyle or other lessons on nutritional psychology.

4. Live training: In the case of live training, we

distinguished between recorded video courses or

courses with the option of live contact with a coach.

5 Exchange between users: An active and

animated community can help to motivate each other

to achieve the user's personal goals. Some apps offer

direct contact between users, other apps an integrated

forum or communities on social media.

6. Provision of healthy recipes: Most apps offer

this function in the premium version, where the user

gets access to a database for a certain fee.

Figure 1: Fitness apps and their functional areas.

4.2 The Voice of the Experts – Results

from Expert Interviews

Three experts were selected for an interviews study

aiming at investigating what improved or future

functionality of fitness apps could establish a

competitive advantage and support the business

model of fitness app providers. In this context, we

decided not to address solitary functional areas but

application scenarios reflecting an integrated set of

functionalities. Starting point for relevant application

scenarios were the results of the market analysis. The

first expert has over ten years of experience as a

fitness coach and operates his own fitness studio.

With years of experience in the fitness scene, his

expertise is expected to bring new ideas to light,

especially regarding the market situation and the

challenges users of a fitness app experience in their

daily lives. The second expert was selected to shed

light on the topics under investigation specifically

with regard to business modelling through his years

of experience as an IT consultant, and to provide

insights into the potential of an objective evaluation

of possible user scenarios that a user may perform

when using the fitness app through his technical

know-how. The third and final expert is a sole

proprietor with expertise in marketing and sales.

The interviews consisted of questions about the

experience and the person of the interviewed expert;

problems on the market of fitness and fitness apps on

offer; possible user scenarios for solving the problems

on the market; and ideas and experiences of

successful business models. During the interview, the

experts were asked where they saw the biggest

problems for fitness app users. Six major pain points

emerged here:

1. New habits: Establishing new habits

require more effort for the user.

2. Daily time tracking: Current apps on the

market are time-consuming.

3. Personal assistance for the user: Due to the

lack of proactivity of the app, users are feeling

lonely and missing support in their daily routines.

4. Education about healthy nutrition: Lack of

information and education on health/nutrition leads

to demotivation of one's healthy diet.

5. Personalization of the fitness app: The user

wants to find an individual solution for nutrition.

6. Collecting the relevant fitness data: The

lack of media integration forces users to use the app

only on the smartphone instead of collecting their

fitness data through other channels.

Based on the experience of the experts, it involves

a great deal of extra work for the user to establish new

habits or change their lifestyle. Fitness apps should

therefore ensure that this additional effort is

minimized as much as possible or that the

establishment of the new habits (e.g. new eating

habits or sports routines) is as pleasant as possible.

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517

Furthermore, it turned out that current fitness apps on

the market are very time-consuming if the user wants

to save or track his diet in the app. Most apps only

offer the option of a barcode scanner or manual input.

This is an additional effort that many users are not

prepared to integrate in their daily lives. This point

will be examined in greater detail in the subsequent

user study. Another pain point focuses on the app's

lack of proactivity. Many users simply feel left alone

by the app. Although many apps offer solutions on the

topic of healthy eating, they do not provide active

support for the user in everyday life.

Furthermore, it became clear from the expert

interviews that many current fitness apps offer little

background information on the complex and

extensive topic of nutrition. As a result, users become

less motivated by the lack of experience, and instead

of achieving their personal nutrition goals, they fall

back into old patterns. In particular, since current

apps only consider the calories consumed as a success

factor for a successful diet, this does not lead to higher

user motivation. The user also wants an individual

solution, which is something a fitness app must be

able to provide. Finally, it also turned out that the

current solutions on the market offer no or too few

options to use the application beyond their

smartphone, i.e. they do not have the option to use the

app on smartwatches and the like simultaneously. To

circumvent the major problem of the increased time

required for a manual input of the eating behaviour,

solution must be created that offer more flexibility to

the user. One solution could be connections to

additional applications or access to smart home

devices. A voice control function in the app could

also improve the user experience.

The experts were also asked about current

problems on the market, which resulted in three major

problem areas from the expert interviews: One of the

biggest problems is active communication with the

user or the absence of such communication. The lack

of communication makes users feel left alone and on

their own. The lack of proactivity on the part of the

app providers must be seen as problematic. Although

current apps offer push messages, these are not

individually tailored and serve mainly as a reminder

function. The second problem concerns the

possibility of taking a closer look at the complex topic

of a healthy diet from the user's point of view. There

needs to be more than the learning curves offered by

current apps to educate the user and thus motivate him

or her more. The third problem identified was the

familiarization phase and the individuality required to

know the user properly. Since many apps only use

calorie counts as a success factor, this often means

that the user only uses the app for a short time and

then stops using it directly due to a failure, since the

app does not offer any individual solutions.

As a final result, a prioritized list of the top 5 user

scenarios was created from the expert interviews to

map which functions an innovative fitness app should

offer users (see Table 2). The first rank is the nutrition

recording scenario. The user should be allowed to

save this function in the app using voice recognition,

semantic linking, manual input or automatic camera

recognition. This is intended to significantly reduce

the time required by the user and make meal

recording as convenient as possible. In second place

is the familiarization phase. This should be used to get

to know the user properly to offer him an individual

solution. This should be as intuitive and low-

threshold as possible. Next, the app should collect as

much data as possible about the user's habits,

preferences, and routines to support the getting-to-

know phase. With the help of meals that can be

selected in advance based on this habit data, the user

should be able to carry out his meal recording via

push notifications. For example, the app should

recognize what the user regularly eats for breakfast

and, based on this data, ask the user via notification

whether he or she has eaten the same thing for

breakfast for today. In last rank, the idea of making

automated suggestions based on the nutritional values

consumed, which should help the user to improve

their diet, was included.

Figure 2: Priority of application scenarios as result of

pairwise comparison

4.3 The Voice of the Users – Results

from User Study on Usability

The user study was conducted in three different

phases, where 22 study participants were asked about

a fitness app before, during and after use. The

participants were asked to test one of the four selected

apps over ten days to obtain information about user

behaviour, wishes and problems relating to the fitness

apps. First, a survey was conducted with the study

participants before they were to test the app assigned

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to them. This included questions about their

experience with previous fitness apps, their self-

assessment of their well-being and purchasing

behaviour, their monthly willingness to pay for a

fitness app and the financial possibilities of a healthy

diet. The question about the future probability of

using a fitness app was chosen as a control question

for all three phases of the user study to determine how

user behaviour changes before, during and after using

the tested app.

Following the initial survey, study participants

were assigned their respective apps, which they were

free to use during a ten-day trial. However,

participants were asked to use the app regularly

during the trial and test it extensively for

functionality. After half of the test period, the second

survey was conducted with the participants to capture

the impressions during the use of the app. The

questions from the second survey mainly refer to the

perceived user experience with the app. With the help

of 7-Likert scales, questions were asked about the

user experience, usage behaviour, the amount of time

required, how well participants felt the app was

supported, and the general functionality of the app,

among other things. Many questions in the survey

were designed based on the TAM (see section 2.3).

Thus, four aspects of the model were included in the

questionnaire: perceived usefulness, perceived ease

of use, attitude toward use (here: satisfaction), and

intention to use. Finally, a final interview was

conducted with the study participants at the end of the

ten days to use open-ended questions to capture

precise reasons as to what the user liked about the

app, what they did not like, and what they would like

to see in an ideal fitness app in the future. The results

of the user study were grouped into different areas

and are summarized below:

1. Experience with fitness apps

Approx. half of the study participants indicated

little or no experience using fitness apps before the

study. When asked about their level of knowledge,

50% of participants indicated that they were ignorant

and did not consider themselves experts. Overall,

53% of participants indicated that they felt

inexperienced and 57% uninformed about fitness

apps. Thus, the results and responses of the

participants reveal an unbiased and open-minded

attitude toward the fitness apps studied.

2. Willingness to receive advice and coaching

while using a fitness app.

The study results show that most participants

would like further information from the fitness app

and would also like to be educated on the pros and

cons of a weighted diet. Overall, 57% of participants

said they would engage in counselling and coaching,

39% were more averse to counselling, and 5% were

neutral about it. A clear trend emerged in information

clarification. Here, 20 out of 22 participants stated

that they would be given additional information. A

clarification of the advantages and disadvantages was

desired by 87% of the participants, 23% even

expressly agreed with this statement. In addition, the

study revealed that participants would welcome

decision support. In this regard, 77% of the

participants stated that they would like to have

accompanying support on nutrition. It can be

concluded that future fitness apps should implement

the aspects of an additional consulting or coaching

service and support the user by providing individual

information so that the user knows what she/he

should pay attention to regarding a healthy diet to

achieve his personal goals.

3. Criteria for the selection of a fitness app

Quality and performance were found to be the

most important for users of a fitness app. The

participants indicated 82% that these criteria are

essential for the selection. Likewise, the app must

positively impact the user's well-being. With 77%,

the participants indicated that this is also an essential

criterion for choosing a fitness app. Another

important criterion is price. Here, 55% of participants

agreed that price was very important in making a

choice. Overall, 32% said that price was important.

Less important is the familiarity of the offer and the

recommendation of friends, which the user can obtain

from outside experience. The least important factor

for the users of a fitness app is the attractiveness of

the advertising, where 59% stated that the external

appearance of the app is less important.

4. Impact on future likelihood of use.

The question about likelihood of use served as a

control question for overall satisfaction as well as for

the added value of the apps’ features. The results

showed that all four fitness apps failed to convince

participants of the promised added value. Although

the likelihood of using a fitness app was 47% before

testing the app, this likelihood continued to

deteriorate during and after the testing period.

MyFitnessPal's likelihood of use decreased by 62%

and Noom's and Yazio's likelihood of use decreased

by 74% each when comparing before and after using

the app. For the app Fastic, the probability changed

by 32% overall, indicating that the testers are more

satisfied with this app.

5. Impact on the user experience of the app.

Despite the low probability of use, the study

showed a high level of popularity with the Noom app.

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519

Thus, there was a very high level of satisfaction with

the Noom app among the study participants

throughout the usage period. 4 of the 5 Noom testers

indicated they were very satisfied with the app. The

app Noom meets the expectations of the study

participants due to the large and individual offer and

established itself as the best fitness app in terms of

overall satisfaction compared to the other apps. Since

price is an important criterion for users, it can be

assumed that the very high price of Noom is the cause

why the likelihood of future use (see 4.) was found

quite low. Although the study participants were

mostly satisfied with the functions of Yazio and

Fastic, both apps were not able to completely fulfil

the users' needs and wishes during the test period. The

app MyFitnessPal received the worst results in the

user study. Overall, 60% of study participants said

they were not satisfied with the app and 80%

indicated that it failed to meet their needs and desires.

6. Time required to use the app

Since the amount of time required is an important

factor in evaluating the user experience, the user

study asked the study participants how much time

they had to invest per day to use the app. The user

study found that the Fastic app was the least time-

intensive for users compared to the other apps.

Overall, 67% of participants agreed they had to make

little to no major time investment to use it. Likewise,

when asked about the eating behaviour features and

the control question that it had only taken a few

minutes to use the app, the Fastic app scored the

highest in terms of time investment. Although 50% of

the testers stated that the meal recording function in

the app was too time-consuming, 50% of the Noom

testers said that they only had to spend a few minutes

on the app to use it. The Yazio app was rated by the

participants as time-consuming in some cases. In

particular, the meal recording function was rated as

too time-consuming for the app. As with the Noom

app, it can be assumed that the apps' solutions for

meal recording are too time-consuming. The most

time-consuming and thus the worst rated app was

MyFitnessPal. Here, 60% of the testers stated that the

time required to use the app was too high, 40% of

them even as not acceptable. Also rated as very time-

consuming was the meal recording function.

Although 80% of the users stated that they only had

to spend a few minutes to use the app in principle,

60% of the participants stated that the time required

had kept them from using the app.

7. Results on the functional scope of a fitness app

From the user study, the study participants

indicated that users of a fitness app would like to

receive regular push notifications on their cell

phones, as long as they are discreetly placed and serve

as a reminder to eat healthy. In the case of the app

Fastic and Yazio, users were more divided in this

regard, with a majority of testers of the app

MyFtinessPal and Noom opting for more push

notifications. Overall, users need to see the added

value of the app before paying money monthly to use

it. In particular, a no-obligation, free trial month is

very important from the users before they should

spend money on an app. Users would like to test the

full functionality of the app during this month in order

to see the promised added value ahead of time and to

test whether the app suits the respective user.

8. Results of the open questions on the status quo

To conclude the user study, participants were

asked questions during the interview about what they

liked about the app, what they did not like, and what

was lacking about the app overall. These results

should provide more insight into what users want

from fitness apps and what such apps can do better in

the future. In summary, it can be said that the study

participants rated a modern design and a simple user

interface, which has been designed intuitively and

clearly, very positively. In the case of the

MyFitnessPal app, the huge selection of the food

database and the free connection with other sports and

health apps on the cell phone were particularly rated

positively by users. The app Fastic was rated as

beginner-friendly due to its very simple operation and

pleasant due to its quick and easy registration. The

Yazio app well received by the participants in its

range of functions already offered in the free version.

5 DISCUSSION

From the results obtained from the user study, the

problems and desires of the users result in

implications for app providers in the nutrition sector,

which are summarized below to improve the user

experience for the user.

The evaluation of the user study shows that the

functions offered by the apps studied require too

much time on the user’s part. These confirm the

results from the user survey, which revealed that the

time required is too great, especially for the food

storage function. This large time investment has a

large impact on user satisfaction, which is why many

users have such a low future likelihood of use. After

the user study, users were asked what they would like

to see in an ideal fitness app. Many of the study

participants would like to see more innovative and,

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above all, user-oriented solutions. App providers

should ensure that the storage of eating habits is

served with functions such as voice recognition,

smart home or other innovative functions to make it

as easy as possible for the user. Users are only willing

to spend a few minutes on a fitness app.

The results of the user study support the

established theory that customizability, usability, and

user engagement are essential to the user experience.

In this regard, user satisfaction, whether they feel

pleasure from the app, plays a significant role. At the

same time, the anticipated usage before testing the

app was investigated with the help of the queried

expectation. The usability during the usage was

investigated by querying the satisfaction and its

influencing factors. The processed usage after the

testing phase was investigated by a final interview

with the user.

The current problems of the apps can be

summarized as follows: Overall, the participants

would like to see more individuality from the apps

offered, so that they can adjust their use individually

to their own well-being. This applies to the individual

profile setting, whether vegan or vegetarian.

Although some of the apps in the premium version

offer a special filter function or individual diet plans

for such target groups, the study participants wanted

more targeted setting options from the app since the

beginning of use, to thereby also build up a sense of

understanding on the part of the app with the user. At

the same time, many study participants stated that

although the app offers many features for healthy

eating, they would have liked to see more

communication with specific recommendations from

the app. In the following and final chapter, the results'

exact implications will be elaborated to clarify what

specifically fitness apps can do better in the future.

Limitations: Two methods were used for this

study: the semi-structured, guided-thread-based

expert interview and a standardised, Internet-based

questionnaire. To meet the requirements of validity

and reliability, the paper described the study’s logic,

purpose, and reporting style of our approach. To

increase transparency and confidence in the results,

especially in the expert interviews, the views and

opinions of the study participants were reflected and,

to some extent, distinguished from each other. Given

the small and only partly representative sample of the

interviews, it should be considered to test the

transferability and generalizability of the results in

further studies. This study offers an exclusively

German perspective on the study topic. This could

lead to bias in the results (Cai et al., 2022).

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