How Google Broke Fitbit Or, 4 Easy Tips for UX Changes
Whenever there’s a transfer of power in a product—be it through an acquisition, takeover, or reorganization—both risks and opportunities emerge. Ideally, the new team can build off prior efforts to achieve the product’s goals, leaning on established user bases and focusing efforts on a shared vision of the future. But there’s also a risk that the new leadership may discard hard-won features, potentially alienating loyal users. Google seems to do a lot of this kind of acquisition, so let’s take a closer look at one recent case and how it could be resolved.
Google and Fitbit
When Google acquired Fitbit in 2021, it was easy to speculate about their motivations. Fitbit’s user data was a potential goldmine, fitting Google’s ethos of data-driven decision-making and user profiling. Some users worried that Google would simply shutter Fitbit - after all it had done so enough times in the past that there are a few versions of https://killedbygoogle.com/. Fortunately it seemed like this time Google was taking a different approach. Fitbit continued to release new hardware, and its technology became integrated into Google products, especially in the Google Watch lineup.
As a long-time Fitbit user (who also dabbles with Garmin products), I had hoped Google would enhance the Fitbit experience, addressing some of its existing shortcomings. Slightly more accurate data analysis and AI driven food input choices maybe? However, some of Fitbit’s features —particularly food tracking and calorie logging—have instead been disrupted, leaving us to question the acquisition’s purpose.
Fitbit’s Food Tracking: Imperfect but Useful
For years, Fitbit offered a serviceable, if imperfect, food-tracking tool. This included pulling from a vast database of pre populated foods and the user’s ability to add custom foods as well as custom meals. However, there were multiple UX pain points. While users could enter custom foods on both the mobile and web applications, saving them as favorites or bundling them into repeatable meals wasn’t straightforward and only available on the web app. The web app also provided more robust features for users who wanted to view data for in-depth analysis.
Having previously worked on a food tracker with Target100, I know how challenging it is to design and build these tools. For Target100 we implemented favorites and custom meal features, ensuring quick access to frequently logged foods. We also created a new-for-the-industry text bot that users can text their food to the application. Fitbit’s lack of favorites or meal-grouping in the mobile app didn’t make it perfect, but it was manageable because it was available on the web. Users could track their intake, and Fitbit gathered valuable data to support health trends and user profiling.
Enter Google
This isn’t enough Google. Not when I used to be able to do soooo much more!
When Google first acquired Fitbit, they left both apps largely intact—a relief for sure. But on July 8, 2024, they deprecated the Fitbit web app entirely, removing valuable reporting and food-tracking tools. The kicker was that it did this without incorporating the last functionality into the mobile app. This change erased the ability to track custom meals or favorite foods on any device, forcing users to switch to alternatives like MyFitnessPal if they wanted robust food-tracking features.
Removing these features seems like an odd choice, especially given Google’s commitment to data. Logging meals and foods generates precisely the kind of granular data Google values, so why make it harder for users to provide it? By removing these tracking capabilities, Google has reduced its data flow from Fitbit, leaving users with a less functional tool and undermining Fitbit’s value proposition.
How to not do this
Of course this all could have been avoided if Google had taken some simple steps.
Talk to your users.
If you’re taking over an existing product you likely have a reason for doing so. Think about the why of the situation long enough and it usually will come down to users. Traction is still the thing that can’t be bought in the startup world so if you’re going to build on the traction that drew you to the acquisition in the first place you need to ask the users you’re purchasing about their experience. What features do they love? What features do they hate? Why do they continue to use the app? What would make them an active supporter of your product? What would make them an advocate for it?
Of course this all means you need to:
Listen to your users.
Unfortunately we’ve all been a part of enough surveys to know that just because it’s said out loud doesn’t mean the company is listening. And we as Product People and Founders have a sense that we know what the users want better than they do, which is of course not usually the case.
Now that you’ve listened to your new users it’s time to synthesize all of that feedback. To do that:
Don’t take something away without an alternative
People don’t like to have things taken away from them. Even if only a small subsection of your users utilize a feature you’ll quickly find out that they’ll become your loudest users when that feature is removed without an alternative. Providing an alternative can at least mitigate some of the churn that you’ll inevitably see from a major feature change.
And the most effective way to do that is:
Involve the users in your alternative
Now I’m not advocating for a UX by Committee approach. Nobody wins when you bring something to the council. But if you approach things as we did in “Two Simple Tips for Managing Creative Meetings” and bring alternatives for your alternative I can all but guarantee success. And that success will be in retention, satisfaction and adoption, a win, win, win situation for sure!
How Google Could Improve Fitbit’s Food Tracking Experience
Back to Google. Thinking through our tips from above the solutions are pretty simple and wouldn’t require a radical overhaul of Fitbit’s interface or database. Based on my experience designing for food trackers with Target100, here are a few straightforward steps to restore and even enhance these capabilities:
Bring Favorites to the App
Allow users to mark foods as favorites, making them easier to access through search. If users eat certain foods regularly, they should be able to add them quickly without endless searching.
Restore Custom Meal Capabilities
Now that Favorites are back, the option to save custom meals (collections of foods commonly eaten together) should be brought to the mobile app as well. This feature was previously available in the web app, so the data structures are likely already in place. Google should only need to add the interface elements to the mobile app. While the domain model exists, Google should take the opportunity to discuss the actual user flows with existing users.
A good set of “As a user I can…” user stories will go far.
Add Power-User Features
Because Google has taken (in this scenario) the advice to talk with users they should develop a roadmap for adding in sets of power-user features. These can be advanced analytics, public (or user-group) based sharing of Custom Meals and Foods, or anything else that came out of the user surveying questions “What would make you an active supporter of your product? What would make you an advocate for it?”
These changes are feasible and shouldn’t disrupt existing data models or app structures. Custom foods and meals likely still exist in Fitbit’s database, even if they’re currently inaccessible. By reintroducing these options, Google would offer users the tools to log foods in a meaningful way, while regaining data flow that benefits its own analytics.
The Bigger Picture: User Satisfaction
By failing to prioritize formerly core functionality, Google is at risk of alienating Fitbit’s user base, driving users toward competing platforms like MyFitnessPal that fulfill these needs. Google has always been at the forefront of data-driven innovation, but this oversight suggests a disconnect between their strategy and their users’ everyday experiences.
In any acquisition, respecting what made a product valuable to its users is critical. For Fitbit, it wasn’t just step tracking or sleep monitoring—it was a holistic health ecosystem, which included food tracking. Google’s decision to sideline these capabilities isn’t just a UX issue; it’s a lost opportunity to harness user data and support health tracking comprehensively. Moreover, it’s a betrayal of the users they acquired the product to reach. And that’s a real problem strategically and functionally as the new Google/Fitbit moves forward.
