Preventing home workout injuries through real‑time biometric feedback with Align Apparel.
My Hats
UI/UX Designer
App & wearable interface design
Presentation Designer
Visual storytelling for pitch deck
Duration
1 Week
January 2025
SCADstartup Competition
7-day business design sprint
The Squad
Dani Gibson
Videographer, Graphic Designer
Hailey Dang
UX Designer, Branding
Heather Marra
3D Modeler, Researcher
Jordan McMorris
Researcher, Graphic Designer
COVID-19 reshaped
the home fitness landscape.
Home-exercise injuries leading
to ER visits surged by
from 2019 to 2020.
Prevent home workout injuries through sensor-embedded apparel that delivers real-time form correction and AI coaching.
How Might We
How might we help home fitness enthusiasts exercise with proper form and avoid injury when they don't have access to a personal trainer or real-time coaching?
User Insights That Shaped Our Design
Real-Time Beats Retrospective
The Insight
Users need feedback during the movement to actually correct form before injury occurs.
Design Impact
We designed haptic vibration alerts triggered at the moment of misalignment, paired with Apple Watch guidance screens that show corrective actions mid-workout.
The Invisible Tech Imperative
The Insight
Users won't adopt bulky, intrusive devices — injury prevention tech must disappear into what they wear.
Design Impact
Sensors are woven into fabric at strategic strain points (shoulders, elbows, lower back), making the tech invisible and the apparel indistinguishable from premium athletic wear.
Long-term research highlights
that a substantial
of exercise injuries target
three specific areas:
Design Impact
We prioritized sensor density in these high-risk zones and designed the app's "Strain Areas" visualization to map directly to where users feel pain.
Home Fitness Enthusiasts
Lack Professional Guidance
Without trainers, they're prone to form mistakes that accumulate into injuries. Our system is their digital coach.
Tech-Comfortable & Data-Driven
They already use fitness trackers and are ready to upgrade from passive data to real-time correction.
Motivated by Injury Prevention
The 48% COVID-era spike in workout injuries drove them to prioritize prevention over recovery, so they'll invest to avoid the ER.
- ALIGN Apparel is athletic wear featuring smart textiles with integrated sensors strategically placed in areas prone to athlete strain.
- The solution includes
Goal
Create a cohesive visual language across mobile app, Apple Watch, and pitch presentation that signals athletic performance meets intelligent care.
Time Compression
With only 7 days from concept to pitch, we couldn't iterate the traditional way. Every design decision had to be high-conviction from the start — no time for A/B testing, user interviews, or multiple rounds of revisions.
How We Solved It
- Front-loaded research — Days 1–2 were intense secondary research to build shared understanding fast
- Parallel workflows — While I designed interfaces, 3D modeling and branding happened simultaneously
- "Design for final" mindset — We treated the first round as the final round, focusing on clarity and impact over experimentation
What I Learned
Constraints breed focus. When you can't iterate endlessly, you get ruthless about what matters — and that made our storytelling sharper.
If we were to take ALIGN beyond the competition, here's what I'd prioritize:
- Conduct interviews with home fitness enthusiasts to pressure-test the pain point
- Test haptic feedback patterns: Do users intuitively understand what the vibrations mean?
- Prototype the sensor-to-app latency: How fast does feedback need to be to feel "real-time"?
- Map ALIGN against Whoop, Apple Watch Fitness+, and smart apparel brands (Athos, Hexoskin)
- Identify white space: What do existing solutions miss that ALIGN uniquely solves?
- Partner with textile engineers to validate sensor durability through washing/wearing cycles
- Test accelerometer + flex sensor accuracy vs. physical therapist assessment
- Explore battery life and wireless connectivity constraints in real workout conditions
