(It's FREE)
Nowadays adopting a healthy lifestyle has become a common trend, especially among youngsters. They are in fact trying really hard to spend enough time to take care of their health in between their tight job schedules. And that is one of the reasons why health and fitness apps are taking a key role in today’s society. It helps them to keep an eye on their health despite whatever busy things come in their life.
Considering the increase in demands, many enthusiasts are developing novel health and fitness app with improvisations. Here are a few among the key features to be included when you develop such a comprehensive app to maintain health and fitness.
1. Simple user interface:
The user interface should be simple enough for even a new user with limited technical knowledge to use. A user should find it really simple to explore the possibilities of the app without any hassle. The sections within the app should be neatly categorized and navigation needs to be made simple. The interface has to be good enough to engage the users and welcoming them to use it freely.
2. Personal information account:
The app needs options to set up personal information such as name, age, gender, weight, height, areas of interests and more. This would be really helpful when setting up customized health and workout plans for the user. Also there should be provision to retrieve the information in case they change their devices in future.
3. Login account:
You can set up an option for login account to welcome user to be a part of the app community. The option can be set as either login through mobile number or email id or both. An option for setting a password to enter the app helps them to keep the app data private. To make the login simple, options can be set such as to join through social media platforms such as Facebook where the user might already have an account.
4. Steps tracking:
The most basic activity of a wellness program is to go for walking. And that is why ‘steps tracking’ is one of the key features included in many health apps. The app gives you a target of number of steps to be walked everyday which depends on your other activities too. It then tracks the number of steps you cover each day and revise you the targets and keeps you motivated.
5. Customized diet plans:
After taking into account your height and ideal weight, the app calculates the calories you can eat every day. After having a check on your eating interests such as vegetarian or non vegetarian, the app suggests a customized diet plan that works the best for you. Make sure that the feature calculates the ideal calories and make necessary changes in the diet plan for each day and include varieties to avoid boredom.
6. Workout programs:
The app can include present workout programs and also customized plans according to the user’s interest. An ideal logical workout plan that is feasible need to be included to help them reach their ideal weight and be healthy. Consider including muscle building exercises if the person is a body building freak.
7. Track daily activity:
It is not just the actual exercise time that counts but every small activity matters at the end of the day. Include a feature to track the daily activity such as walking, running, bathing, washing, cooking, playing, driving and more. A sensor to track the heart rate or pulse rate can do the trick to track even the minute activities.
8. Calories tracker:
A balance of the calories intake and the calories you burn everyday matters when you are looking to reach your ideal body weight. A calories tracker feature can help you know the calories you are taking with particular foods every day and how much you burn it with each activity. Knowing this helps you to make necessary changes in your eating and activity schedule to balance the calories.
9. Barcode scanner:
The basic feature of the app to count calories work with the help of pre stored data such as ‘x’ calories for a loaf of bread, ‘x’ calories for a scoop of ice cream and so on. But there can be complex food items the user gets from super market that may not be in the pre-list. Then a bar code scanner can help to track the calories from the food packet. However, the food logging feature should be made very simple to help them enter any of their eatables with the support of a good data base.
10. Activity reminders:
In order to maintain an active schedule, you can set the activities to be done on different times of the day. The activity reminder feature helps you with alerts to do certain activities in case you miss any of them. Similarly, a basic feature can be included to know if the person is idle or in some activity. The app can alert to move if the person is idle for a longer time. However, make sure that it is not annoying for the users and give them the permission to set it on their interest.
11. Geo-location integration:
This feature helps user to link his activity to the location where he was in. This is good to track the position, build walking routes or even record workouts. Such real time data with map integration makes the overall stuff interesting and this motivates users to use the app regularly.
12. Targets and achievements:
If users are looking to lose some pounds of the excess body weight, such features can really work wonders. The users can be allowed to set targets for each day or week and track his goals. You can give reward points for the targets achieved which keeps them motivated. You can also add options to do a comparison of their statistics over a period to help them know how they are progressing.
13. Live streaming:
In addition to the present workouts and diet plans, an advanced live streaming feature can help users to communicate with workout experts or nutritionists to learn more from them. A live guidance from a trainer can really motivate the person and help them to improve their diet and workout programs.
14. Gamification:
Adding this feature can invite a lot of fun to the workout and diet programs. Healthy competitions can be arranged among the app members where they get points or rewards for the tasks completed. If you are planning a big budget venture, you can even arrange annual programs where you can give prizes to the winners of the contests. This is also another way to work for a cause or charity by raising funds.
15. Flexible settings:
The settings need to be comprehensive that includes all the possibilities of such an app. It should be convenient and flexible enough for the user to easily navigate through it and explore it. You can include options to help users to customize the app to meet their requirements and make it a comfortable space for them.
16. Integrate Wearables:
You can allow your app to easily integrate with other wearables to make the usage more convenient for the app users. To help with the storage of additional data, an option can be set to link with Apple or Google kits. Also set option to link the app to watches or similar gadgets to make the whole stuff interesting for the users.
17. Linking Services:
You can add a feature to link the application to other services such as social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Users can share the experience with the app with their friends and followers and at the same time your app gets more popular among the public. Similarly, the feature can be set to connect with other health care applications to help users to make a collaborative effort on their health and fitness from a single place.
These are just a few among the many features that you can include in a health and fitness app. If you are planning to develop an app for a particular society, then you may go for polls or campaigns to learn about their actual areas of interest and what they are actually expecting out of a health app. Or you may develop a basic app and let the people experience it and come out with feedbacks. You can have a detailed study about the relevant feedbacks and make additions in the future updates. After all, a healthy society is an asset of the nation and it can really impact the way the next generations grow up.
