PERSONAL PROJECT / NOVA
FITNESS / A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE
A clearer next move.
Making a routine easier to understand, begin and return to.
A PERSONAL REASON TO BUILD
Consistency was the problem.
Building became the challenge.
I had always found it difficult to keep a fitness routine. Living with generalised anxiety made consistency harder, and the cost of a personal trainer was another barrier. NOVA began as a response to those very personal constraints.
It was also a challenge to myself: could I develop a product that helped me understand the next step, instead of collecting another plan I would struggle to follow?
Personal motivation shared by Victor for this case. The project describes a design and development challenge; it does not claim measured health outcomes.
- ROLE
- Product direction, UX/UI, identity and native development
- PLATFORM
- iPhone / implemented personal project
- EVIDENCE
- Physical captures, source review and portfolio reconstructions
FIRST EXPLORATION / RECONSTRUCTED
A thought between stops.
The earliest question does not need a polished interface: what do I need to see before I can begin? The rough study reduces the idea to a signal, a start and a review. A Moleskine A5 on a Lower Hutt bus puts that question back into an ordinary day.
Reconstructed early exploration, created for this portfolio. Primitive wireframes in a Moleskine A5; fictional scene informed by Lower Hutt context. This is not an original historical sketch.
THE ROUTINE
A small route into the routine.
The briefing explains the day. A session offers a concrete commitment. The progress view makes the surrounding pattern visible. Example history is fictional and isolated from the personal health library.
FROM IDEA TO IMPLEMENTATION
A signal needs a chain of decisions.
SwiftUI presents the daily briefing, the workout and the review. SwiftData keeps the native training records. The recovery engine combines HRV, resting heart rate and sleep relative to a personal baseline, then the interface puts that signal beside an action.
The hard part is the boundary between those layers. Health access, Watch communication and Coach context need clear states. The screenshot library uses isolated demonstration records, so the portfolio can show the interface without borrowing a real person's health history.
Observe
Bring the day's signals into a readable briefing.
Choose
Make the next session understandable before it starts.
Review
Connect a completed session with the routine around it.
RECOVERYENGINE.SWIFT / IMPLEMENTATION EXCERPT
let sleepScore = i.sleepHours > 0
? min(i.sleepHours / 8.0, 1.0) * 100 : 50
let total = hrvScore * 0.5 + hrScore * 0.25 + sleepScore * 0.25
return Int(min(max(total, 0), 100))The code is a deterministic recovery heuristic. The figures in this portfolio are demonstration inputs; the case does not establish clinical validity.
THE ROUTINE
The moment when a plan becomes practice.
Choosing or importing a routine, understanding the commitment, resting and closing the session are different jobs. The native screens make those transitions part of one product.
THE ROUTINE
Training does not happen in isolation.
Nutrition, a contextual Coach and recovery sessions give the training decision somewhere to connect. The Coach conversation shown here is demonstration content; screenshots do not verify a remote model or a training outcome.
THE VISUAL LANGUAGE
Energy, with restraint.
NOVA
An obsidian base gives the interface depth. Lime is reserved for action, with violet and cyan connecting the broader system. The existing Signal identity uses a central core and orbit to express a daily cycle, rather than a generic gym badge.
Obsidian
#070A0C
Action lime
#C8FF3D
Intelligence
#A48BFF
Recovery
#5BE7F4
Portfolio typography / Bricolage Grotesque + Instrument Sans. Handwritten accents / Permanent Marker. Original app typography is preserved inside each screenshot.
APPLICATION STUDIES
A companion for the day
that actually happens.
Petone's waterfront gives NOVA an everyday setting for movement. The bus sketch and the gym application show two different parts of the same project: the idea forming during ordinary life, and the product supporting a session. These are photographic portfolio applications with fictional people.
Your body changes.
Your training should, too.
TRAINING / RECOVERY / NUTRITION
NOVA
WHERE IT IS NOW
The real challenge is returning tomorrow.
NOVA became an implemented personal product direction and a sustained development challenge. The case brings the personal reason for building it together with native onboarding, training, recovery, nutrition, Coach and progress screens.
The next useful evaluation is whether someone can understand the daily signal, choose a suitable next action and return after a disrupted week. A beautiful ring is only useful when the surrounding experience makes that return easier.
The full screen atlas contains the captured onboarding steps, training and rest states, completion, running, recovery, nutrition, profile, account and settings surfaces. Every screen is a physical iPhone capture with demonstration content. Backend account sign-in, purchases, Watch delivery and health outcomes are not validated by these screenshots. Explore the full screen atlas ↗
EVIDENCE / Physical iPhone captures, 1–2 November 2026, using portfolio demonstration data. Fictional photographic people and scenes. Reconstructed primitive process studies. Product rationale and source excerpts are distinguished from the personal motivation Victor supplied for NOVA. No invented research participants, adoption metrics or outcome results.