Chelsea Piers

The Chelsea Piers Fitness app is a user-facing functional space where club members manage their daily activities, so it had to balance personality with usability. To find a middle ground, Big Human designers broadened Chelsea Piers’ branding with supplementary elements and expanded the design system to include more user-friendly components.

We created a brighter secondary color palette better suited for a mobile platform, which works as accents and visual cues in activity charts, inputs, and as backgrounds for notifications, announcements, and other content. Embracing a welcoming, human-centric design, we also opted for rounded corners, buttons, and UI inputs. After refining the typography, we added an icon library that covers notable UI elements and each activity and service available at Chelsea Piers. The brand kit includes foundational elements and outlines how to maintain a sufficient color contrast ratio and scale typography and iconography for readability and clarity.

The Chelsea Piers Fitness app is a self-serve management platform where users can check schedules, book classes, reserve amenities, register for events, and even order items from their club’s cafe. The original app fulfilled those basic functions, but based on member feedback, we knew it needed to be more user-focused and tech-forward. 

Big Human designers rearranged the information architecture to improve the app’s overall layout and make key features easily accessible, using responsive grids and dynamic components to organize content in a way that made sense for the individual user. Keeping the platform intuitive while maintaining functionality, we made sure the IA was scalable so Chelsea Piers could continue to add classes and services with minimal effort.

As part of our navigational restructure, we boosted the visibility of the app’s most-used functions: enrolling in activities and arranging services. We made activities easier to find by implementing contextual search options that let members filter by class type, time of day, instructor, location, and more. If users designate a home gym, they’ll automatically see classes at that facility, while all-access members can explore options at other clubs. 

On the class details pages, we introduced “What to Expect” and “Come Prepared” modules that inform members of an activity’s focus areas and any necessary or provided equipment. Each class is led by a certified instructor, whom users can get to know through instructor profiles that outline a trainer’s specializations and their upcoming classes. Club members often expressed interest in consistently attending classes with the same instructor, so we gave them the ability to favorite those instructors, with their schedules prominently displayed on the app’s home screen.

Certain activities and additional amenities, like babysitting and massages, require club credits. Previously, members could buy credits through the app but could only redeem them in person. To make things more convenient, we baked the feature into the UI, allowing users to manage their credits within the app itself. If users need to buy more credits while scheduling a service, they can do it seamlessly within the booking flow.

When opening the Chelsea Piers Fitness app, the old home screen would default to the QR code that enables club members to check into a facility. While this function is essential, it isn’t the first thing users need to access unless they’re already at a clubhouse. Placing the QR code just a single tap away, we reformatted the home screen to serve different components depending on user behavior.

Since joining a gym can be intimidating for some, Chelsea Piers wanted to ease first-time members into the gym environment with a guided experience. We designed a brand-new onboarding flow that asks users about their fitness goals, the activities they’re interested in, and when they prefer to work out (mornings, afternoons, or evenings). After the app compiles the information into a comprehensive fitness profile, it presents users with a checklist that covers their first three months, including scheduling a free training session and using a guest pass. The new member home screen also offers suggestions for introductory classes, popular classes among current members, and in-person events designed to connect them with fellow gym-goers. 

As members settle into the gym, the home screen adjusts for an even more personalized experience. In addition to upcoming sessions and “Book Again” prompts, the featured carousels recommend classes based on recent activity, users' usual workout routines, and their favorite instructors. On their fitness profiles, members can track their data, view their weekly check-in streak, and see a breakdown of the types of classes they’ve attended.

The main goal of Big Human’s redesign was elevating the Chelsea Piers Fitness app, so it could provide its members with a sophisticated digital platform. To bring that vision to life, we zeroed in on the utilities that make an in-app experience seamless and enjoyable. 

After revamping the app’s splash screens and welcome flows for account creation, membership signups, and logins, we built features that encourage users to explore the Chelsea Piers network. Members can learn about different gyms by browsing their individual details pages, which display native maps showing their exact location. We also installed geofencing tags that prioritize in-app content depending on where users are when they open the app.

To give users more authority over their membership, our design team expanded the profile landing page to include account details, membership insights, credit balance, guest pass usage, payment types, and more. Since the app is primarily used to schedule activities, we connected Android and Apple APIs so users can add classes and events to their own calendars.

Chelsea Piers Fitness often sends its users notifications about club closures, booking confirmations, upcoming events, and more. Before our redesign, however, these notifications were delivered via email, a platform members are less likely to check throughout the day. We simplified how users stay up-to-date on happenings by directly merging those communications into the app, stacking them chronologically on a dedicated page and promoting push notifications.

The Chelsea Piers Fitness app performs various functions, requiring several third-party integrations and APIs to operate smoothly. Big Human engineers built an extensive tech stack that included Exerp, a club management software that’s standard throughout the health & fitness industry. We thoughtfully selected services that would pair well with the Exerp system and increased the tech architecture from five programs to eight, opting for software that ensured a frictionless experience without creating extra dev work for the Chelsea Piers team.

We supplemented existing information in Exerp with Sanity, a secondary CMS that now houses all of Chelsea Piers’ images and content like class descriptions and metadata. Our developers then connected the app to the Zoho CRM to handle all communications and notifications and streamlined event management with Eventbrite. To support the new in-app purchasing feature, we also added Ayden, a payment processor. By integrating Heap to enhance analytics tracking for members’ in-app actions, our teams can gather insights that’ll inform future updates and optimizations.