Health Fitness

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TrustMark is a US-based employee benefits company that sells wellness programs to corporate clients across manufacturing and office sectors. In 2021, they had no mobile fitness product — just an idea and a user base that mainstream fitness apps consistently ignored: workers aged 50+, many with chronic pain, limited time, and zero interest in gym culture.

They needed to go from zero to a shipped iOS and Android app, with WCAG 2.1 AA compliance baked in from the start.

Challenge

Most fitness apps assume their user is young, mobile, and motivated. TrustMark’s users weren’t any of those things — and no product in the market was designed for them.

The business problem was straightforward: TrustMark needed a differentiated product to pitch to corporate clients. The design problem was harder: build a fitness app from scratch for an underserved audience with specific physical constraints, in 9 months, compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA.

Specific tasks:

• Map stakeholder goals and OKRs across a large, cross-functional team (product, engineering, delivery, executive)
• Define user personas and accessibility requirements based on real user constraints (chronic pain, reduced mobility, ages 50–60)
• Run a full Discovery phase (8 weeks) to get from abstract brief to a validated, scoped MVP
• Design UX for six core modules: Onboarding/Product Tour, My Plan, Workouts, 1:1 & Live Sessions, Goals, Profile
• Integrate WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility criteria into design decisions from day one, not as a retrofit
• Deliver task flows, wireflows, wireframes (low/mid fidelity), and visual design guidance for the Visual Designer
• Scope and prioritize features under budget and time pressure using a “Buy a Feature” prioritization method

Solution

Discovery — Align, Immerse, Envision, Define

The 8-week Discovery ran in four phases. Week 1 focused on stakeholder alignment: workshops to surface OKRs, business priorities, and competing visions across product, tech, and executive teams. Weeks 2–3 went into users — analyzing TrustMark’s existing personas, running a Journey Map exercise, and identifying the gap between what mainstream apps offered and what this audience actually needed. Weeks 3–5 were about ideation and scoping: brainstorming sessions, a Jobs to Be Done analysis mapped to a custom “Spiders” framework, and a “Buy a Feature” prioritization to force hard decisions. The final weeks produced a clickable prototype, approved design concept, user stories, Agile effort estimates, and a design roadmap for the MVP.

Accessibility Strategy

WCAG 2.1 AA was a regulatory baseline, not a feature request — TrustMark operates in healthcare-adjacent employee benefits, and their corporate clients required it. The user base made it non-negotiable anyway: reduced mobility, chronic pain, and users unfamiliar with mobile apps demanded low cognitive load, large touch targets, strong contrast, and clear hierarchy. Accessibility decisions were embedded at the wireframe stage, not added after visual design.

UX Design — Six Core Modules

The MVP covered six interconnected flows. Product Tour: a personalized onboarding flow that collected pain areas, fitness level, work type, and health goals to generate a recommended routine — three options presented on first open. My Plan: a personalized dashboard showing scheduled activities, completed goals, calendar view, and recommended content when no plan existed. Workouts: category → subcategory → video navigation (macro-to-micro, informed by prior experience with content-heavy apps), with a 5-star post-class rating and improvement feedback. 1:1 & Live Sessions: bookable sessions with specialist coaches; push notifications for live class access. Goals 2.0: a full CRUD goal engine — name, active status, weekly schedule — designed as the most personal module in the app. Profile: biometric login (Face ID / Touch ID) to resolve the employer-email login dependency that was causing access failures.

MVP Expansion — Ahead of Schedule

The team completed core development faster than projected. This freed scope to add two features not in the original brief: Advanced Filter (level, class length, instructor selector, content type) for a library that exceeded 50 videos per category, and Casting to TV so users could stream workouts to a television from the mobile app.

Prioritization Under Constraint

A cross-functional team with strong opinions required structured decision-making. The “Buy a Feature” method — giving stakeholders a fixed budget of tokens to bid on features — resolved alignment conflicts without politics. Features cut for time/budget (wearable integration, social groups, instructor blogs, advanced analytics) were documented for potential post-launch phases.

Outcome

Shipped iOS and Android apps in 9 months, from blank slate to App Store and Play Store. Designed with WCAG 2.1 AA from the ground up. TrustMark’s sales team added the app to their B2B pitch immediately after launch.

• iOS and Android apps shipped in React Native, zero to launch in 9 months
• WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility criteria applied across all six core modules from wireframe stage
• 4.9★ App Store rating
• 5.0★ Play Store rating
• Rolled out as a signature benefit for TrustMark’s B2B corporate clients across the US
• Delivered: Stakeholder Map, OKR workshops, Journey Map, Spiders framework, Value Proposition Canvas, task flows, wireflows, low/mid-fidelity wireframes, visual design guidelines, clickable prototype

Services

Accessibility Strategy · UX Design · Semantic Mapping · A11Y Audits

Tools

Figma · Axe · WAVE · VoiceOver · TalkBack · Google Slides

Industry

Autonomous Mobility / Deep Tech

Web

zoox.com