The purpose of our project is to provide a free and easily accessible fitness application for the disabled population so they may maintain a healthy lifestyle, safely. We will offer disability specific exercises, modifications and programs that have been safely developed by professionals such as doctors, physical therapists, and other specialists in the disabled fitness field. These exercises are modified to work effectively in any environment, whether it be at a gym facility or at home.
One of our major challenges was narrowing the scope of our project. Ideally, our application would be able to help individuals with any disability, but the needs of each person are so different depending on their disability. For the purposes of our project, we had to narrow down our focus so that we could ensure we are providing a quality product for specific disabilities, still with the goal of expanding at a future date. At first, we decided to focus on wheelchair users with lower limb impairments and blind individuals. As we explored factors like technical needs for these communities and the types of exercises that would be applicable for these disabilities, we realized they are so different that it would be challenging for us to create programs and technical elements that address both communities. As a team, we took these challenges into consideration, we decided to narrow our scope even further to cater only to wheelchair users with lower limb impairments. As a result of making this decision, we can provide higher quality services to this community. As we continue to grow, even after C4 ends, our plan is to slowly expand and create programs for different disabilities so that eventually, we can help multiple communities.
Another one of our major obstacles was the ethics process. After conducting some secondary research and literature review, we found there was only few articles getting opinions from the disabled community to serve their needs. Therefore, we decided to conduct interviews, surveys and focus groups with individuals in our target group to get a better understanding of their needs and expectations of a fitness app to ensure that it is as accessible and effective as possible. So, having to go through the ethics process with York’s Ethics Review Committee was a requirement. Filling out the mandatory forms and creating other documents for the process helped refine a lot of our ideas and sort out the details very clearly, more intensely than we expected. Additionally, receiving approval took over a few months so the ethics process was a major roadblock in the progression of our project in terms of our timeline, but it also helped us sort out the technical aspects that are crucial. We came up with a list of questions to ask survey participants and they will answer them on Google Forms. We also wanted to include an option for individuals to participate in our interview or focus group, so we planned to include a question asking individuals to leave their contact information at the end of the survey only if they would like to join. Essentially, the survey would be used to reach a wide audience and from there, selected few (who want to participate) will take part in the more specific methods of our research, that being interviews and a focus group. We then had to come up with a list of questions for our interviews and focus group. After doing so and creating consent forms for participants, we realized that most of our questions for all three methods of research were very similar. Not only that, but since we will be gathering our participants for interviews and the focus group from our surveys, we will also be using the same participants as well. We realized that it would be pointless to recycle the same questions and the same participants so we decided to only conduct surveys for individuals who use a wheelchair which is the most efficient option considering the deadlines. Although it was time-consuming to create those questions and consent forms, we believe it will save time during the process of collecting primary research. We did decide though to conduct interviews with physiotherapists and disabilities counselors because their input would be very insightful to our work.
Aside from the HPRC forms and the consent forms that we had to fill out, we realized that we also needed to create many other documents, such as the recruitment scripts, recruitment poster, mental health resources, etc. Initially, Sonika and Tharanya took up the task of working on the ethics process, but it soon became evident that this required help from essentially all members of the group. Everyone took small tasks to work on individually to get the work done in a timely manner. Even so, it was difficult to meet our personal goal of submitting our ethics to the Review Committee by December because we realized that a lot of changes had to be made to our initial plans and documents, and making these decisions were necessary to make as a group. Our project revolved around ethics, and we needed a clear idea of the direction we wanted to take our project in order to complete the ethics process. While it did delay a portion of the project, we know exactly what needs to be done and those tasks can now be completed in a timely manner. Nonetheless, through many group meetings and collaborative efforts, we were able to hand in our ethics a couple weeks into January.
Another challenge we faced was in regards to budget and expenses. We realized that many people do not want to spend their free time doing a survey or interview so we needed to provide some incentive. At first, we hoped to offer compensation to the participants but after consulting with the teaching team we realized that was not an option and we had to come up with an alternative. We concluded that we could provide York University swag as a reward for user participation. We created a budgeting plan to determine how much product we can offer and we budgeted and planned a distribution method. The rewards will likely play a large role in why people will be motivated to take our survey and will ensure that we collect sufficient data.
In addition to challenges surrounding the logistics of our project, another major challenge we ran into was team scheduling and cohesion. As students, we are all juggling multiple classes, jobs, and personal lives. For this reason, it was very challenging to find times that worked for everyone to meet and work on upcoming assignments. This became frustrating for those who were always in attendance, but also frustrating for the individuals who were unable to attend since there was never a meeting set to accommodate their schedule. Additionally, members who focus on different areas of the project were not always aware of the amount of work that other teams were doing and may have felt that the workload was uneven. Once we reached the mid-way point, team members began to speak up about their concerns and we addressed the issue of team meetings and workload per person. We discussed everyone’s schedules and it was clear that there was not one day and time that worked for all 7 team members. We decided that the only way to give all members an opportunity to contribute meaningfully would be to set 2 meeting times per week where members could meet to not only work on upcoming assignments, but each person would speak on what they were working on that week, their status and next steps moving to the next week. This was a very effective way for the team to know who was working on what and how other members could coordinate their tasks or potentially offer assistance.
Our group was also debating whether we would like to take on our project as an app or a website, and this would heavily impact the final outcome. We were contemplating the website option solely because it would be easier to put together in terms of coding and technicalities. A website would still be accessible, but it may be harder to use on a smaller device like smartphones, which individuals may find more convenient if they like to exercise somewhere outside of their homes. An application would be great not only for the accessibility, but for its ability to reach a wider audience, as smartphones are widely used everyday and for a multitude of purposes. Fitness apps have also been on the rise in terms of popularity as individuals are striving to lead healthier and active lifestyles. However, with the limited time we have left in the semester, the website idea was a serious consideration. We decided to vote on what our group members preferred and many sided with the app. So, we decided to be more proactive in making that happen by tapping into the resources available. Gbemisola and Audrey will be working on the coding process for the app, and they have already begun the process with what they can do. They have also reached out to the Teaching Team to possibly find individuals who can help put the app together at a faster pace, as the more hands we have on the project, the better. So far, we have had little luck and this has been an ongoing challenge. Gbemisola and Audrey are still looking for help while working on the project the best they can, and the other members have been supportive in whatever way possible.
All in all, the only thing we wish we did differently was set these 2 weekly meetings and debriefs much sooner. Once we implemented this, we were able to all perform better individually but also became a much more cohesive team, which is progressing us even quicker towards our goals. Additionally, we wish that we had anticipated technical difficulties that could occur during presentations. While it was unfortunate, it was an excellent learning experience for our team, so that moving forward, we will always have a plan B, not only in this course but also in our future careers and team work projects. Our project as a team in this course has taught us many lessons but the one that stands out the most is the value of organization and time management skills. Few of our team members took initiative to create task management sheet and secondary research table which played a crucial role in making this project a success. Overall, the team also had great collaboration skills which allowed us all to voice our ideas and be supported by team members.