Multi-criteria evaluation of mobile fitness applications during COVID-19 pandemic based on AHP

ABSTRACT

Fitness centres have been among the first businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is clear that with the pandemic, users' choices for sports services and selection criteria for them have changed. During the pandemic, there has been a transition from traditional gym classes to virtual fitness classes. People have started to rapidly adopt these technology-based alternatives worldwide, and there has been an increase in the download and use of these mobile fitness applications. However, there are many alternatives to fitness applications for users. In this study, making the most effective selection among the alternatives in mobile applications where there are conflicting user criteria and identifying customer-oriented platform development proposals in terms of service providers are aimed to contribute to the relevant literature. The study has proposed an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model, one of the Multi-criteria Decision-Making approaches, for selecting the best choice among mobile fitness application alternatives where there is more than one alternative with more than one criterion and these criteria conflict with each other. The proposed AHP solution has a modular structure that can be easily adapted in case user preferences (criteria) changes and can flexibly be updated when the alternatives change.