Personal Health Coach
An AI-powered coach that helps users understand where they are, what to work on and how to progress towards their health and fitness goals on mobile and wearables
Role and contribution
Leading the coaching metrics experience across Android, iOS, and Pixel Watch. I conducted foundational research, established the core metrics framework, defined the design direction, shaped the product strategy, and partnered with engineers and clinicians to bring the product to market.
Shaped a consistent coaching narrative, redefined the health metrics experience aligned across multiple teams, pushed the boundaries of the design system, and launched the product that now scales across mobile and watch surfaces.
Contribution
Strategy, Discovery Research, UX/ UI Design, Testing, Delivery
Team
Product managers, Program managers, AI Engineers, Android & iOS engineers, Clinicians, QA, Data scientist, Researchers
Timeline
Nov. 2025 - Feb. 2026
Outcome
- Established a unified coaching metrics framework and scaled it across the service.
- Launched weekly cardio load as the hero health metric at the centre of the coaching plan.
- Translated complex health metrics into clear guidance, increasing comprehension to 93%.
Key features
Today
The daily view that acts as your coach’s voice, showing how you are doing right now and what to do next through contextual LLM insights.
Fitness
A dedicated space for weekly fitness metrics and plans, helping you connect the dots between key signals and long term progress.
Ask Coach
Provides tailored health and wellness answers based on your wearable data, clinical records, and lifestyle, powered by Gemini.
Metrics Breakdown
A focused view that shows how metrics change across different timeframes so you can see patterns and trends over time.
Full case study details are available upon request. Below is a breakdown of how we arrived at the solution. ↓
Fitbit moves from passive tracking to active coaching
Fitbit is evolving from passive tracking to active coaching, powered by Gemini AI. The vision is clear: personalised training plans that adapt to each user’s fitness level, goals and real world behaviour.
AI powered coaching
Integrate Gemini to deliver a proactive coach across the Fitbit experience.
Personalised training plans
Create workout plans that adapt to each user’s context, fitness level and goals.
Cardio focused first release
Start with cardio, since it matches user behaviour and our tracking capabilities.
Fitbit’s legacy — a metrics-first product
Fitbit has always been a metrics-centric product, surfacing rich data across activity, sleep, stress and health. Over the years this led to an ecosystem with lots of metrics
Too many metrics, no clear narrative
Users were drowning in data. Steps, heart rate, cardio load, HRV, 30+ metrics with no prioritisation, no connections, and no clear story about what to do.
Of all the metrics, Cardio Load, the key indicator for training was rated the hardest to understand. Users couldn't explain what it meant or not feel relevant to the daily goal range.
Making Cardio Load the foundation of AI coaching
To serve our target users and help them train at the right intensity, we chose Cardio Load as the core metrics powering the AI coaching experience
Engage primary users
These users want advanced metrics to better understand and improve their training.
A single anchor
Cardio Load provides one consistent metric across all fitness activities.
Train in balance
It helps users avoid overtraining and undertraining.
Cardio load was central but poorly understood
Coaching plan anchor Cardio load is one of the biggest concerns in the coaching metrics. When we launched it in 2024, we assumed a daily goal range would give users flexibility and a clear target, but in reality the goal felt confusing and hard to interpret.
Four barriers revealed by the metrics audit
Identified four key barriers by auditing the experience across 12 metric dimensions and synthesising previous user feedback.
Low comprehension
Cardio load were hard to interpret, leading to drop-off over time.
Low engagement
Some metrics saw low repeat usage and were rarely revisited after first exposure.
Lack clear narrative
Health metrics didn’t ladder to a clear story of what mattered or what to do next.
Not personalised
Signals weren’t tied to goals or context, so guidance often felt generic in real moments.
Turning data into guidance
Translated audit learnings into guiding principles that turn complex data into simple, relatable elements so people can understand quickly and act with confidence.
Humanise the data
Raw numbers don’t motivate. Translate data into meanings users can act on.
Make it personal
Prioritise what matters in the moment. Tailor metrics to context, goals, and routine.
Unveil what’s behind
Expose key drivers behind advanced metrics so users understand cause and effect.
Use familiar anchors
Map metrics to familiar references to clarify scale and effort.
Shifting from daily range goal to a clear weekly goal
After debating a daily range goal, a fixed daily target, and a weekly goal, PM and I decided to shift from a daily range goal to a weekly goal because:
More flexibility
A weekly goal lets users spread effort across the week to fit real life.
Clearer target
One weekly number replaces a fluctuating daily range, reducing ambiguity.
Aligned with the coaching plan
Match with coaching cadence, making the plan easier to follow.
Redesigning how cardio load shows up
Redefine how Google & Fitbit presents focus metrics especially cardio load. The goal was to create a visual system that feels unmistakably, is instantly glanceable and motivates consistent behaviour.
Ownable
A visual signature that is unmistakably Google & Fitbit.
Glanceable
Immediate clarity on user status and prioritisation.
Motivational
A system that rewards consistency through positive reinforcement.
Established wide range of creative directions
Defined four creative paths for the hero visual, spanning branded shapes, modular systems, unique journeys, and abstract expressive forms. Each explored clearer, more intuitive progress that feels personal.
Narrowed down to four main directions
Synthesised into four focused directions to create a distinctive visual signature, improve glanceability, and reward consistency.
floral visual
workout sessions
remaining raw number
completed workouts
Align with weekly rhythm and translate raw numbers into percentages
Users felt the daily goal range fluctuated too much and did not reflect their personal context. Shifting to a weekly cardio goal, shown as a percentage, gives them more flexibility and helps them plan their training around the realities of their week.
Actionable Cardio Ring shows when to push, celebrate or rest
To create a clear, distinctive and scalable hero metric, we introduced the cardio ring with three metric pills that show progress at a glance, reinforce goal completion and signal when users are overreaching.
Multiple pathways to learn about cardio load
Alongside the focus metric, I created a learning loop that helped users understand cardio load by linking it to effort, heart rate zones, and familiar metrics through various touch points in the journey.
Setting expectations for each day and week
To make the goal feel clear, the coach shares guidance at the start of the week and before key workouts so users know what to expect and how today fits into their plan.
Using heart rate zones to enhance understanding
Instead of explaining the science in detail, we anchor insights to familiar heart rate zones and simple analogies so users can understand their effort and progress more easily.
Timely check-ins to support goal progress
To fully support users in meeting their cardio load goal, the coach shares timely suggestions based on context and progress throughout the week.
Deepening the understanding with AI Coach
AI Coach provides personalised health and wellness answers based on the user’s wearable data, clinical records, connected services and devices.
Understanding cardio load across heart rate zones and activity types
Beyond weekly totals, the breakdown view lets users explore cardio load by activity type and heart rate zones to build a more holistic understanding.
Connecting workout plan and cardio load in the fitness tab
A dedicated space for fitness metrics and workouts where users can deep dive into how their activities ladder up to weekly and long term progress.
Positive early feedback from users and press
Launched the Fitbit AI coach in public preview, including the new coaching metrics framework and improved cardio load. Early feedback from existing users has been positive, with clearer understanding and stronger engagement with their metrics. Learn more ↗
This foundation will support future Gemini-powered coaching features beyond cardio, with a consistent metrics language across Fitbit.
Standardising components to scale across the service
Partnered with the Material Design System team to evolve the design system and include the framework. This pattern is now used by teams across Fitbit to maintain consistency and quality.
