What's the Problem?

We were born to move. Nike Run Club is a mobile application that helps people motivate and overcome running goals, encouraging them to continue training with GPS tracking, guided running workouts, custom coaching plans, and motivation from friends and other users - while having fun doing it.

Three years ago I was involved in a heavy car accident that landed me in an emergency room. After my recovery, I did not have many ways to cope with the aftermath that was my anxiety from the accident. Two of my closest friends recommended that I try running and install the Nike run application to track my distances. I can say without a doubt, that running saved my life. After my runs, I immediately felt the “runners high”. I was more clear-headed, focused, and running longer distances. It helped with my overall self-confidence by setting running goals and smashing them. Running wasn’t about the destination, it was about the journey. And that journey is beautiful when you can share it with someone else.

There are many scientific studies that show doing physical workouts of any kind can help with mental and physical health, more so when you have the help of friends or a community.

Solution

I designed a feature for Nike Run Club that helps runners connect, experience, and share challenges through their local and global communities. I started the project already having knowledge of a couple of running applications. But I knew I needed to understand and research the use cases of these niche applications and what was their purpose. I focused more on the kind of audience these applications were going for.

What Were the Obstacles?

Working within Nike Run Club’s tight constraints. There wasn’t a lot of room I could work with to add a feature to Nike Run Club’s architecture while making respecting Nike’s design language. I needed to figure out a way to make this teams feature an extension of the application, like it was meant to be there.

Role

UX Designer

UX Researcher

Tools

Figma

Notion

Otter.AI

Timeline

5 Weeks

Secondary Research

I started the project already having knowledge of a couple of running applications. But I knew I needed to understand and research the use cases of these niche applications and what was their purpose. I focused more on the kind of audience these applications were going for.

Understanding the Domain

In order to understand more about these running applications, I needed to research these apps one by one, put them side-by-side for special insights, and visit the product to understand the product. I was also curious about the usage of these apps during the pandemic. This helped me understand what fitness applications prioritize as a business while looking at a few insights on how these applications were used.

Here are some key insights from the secondary research:

• Branding and overall design increase company image.
• Each running application has a personal business that they are focusing on. For example, Nike Run Club hopes users buy their shoes with their added “Add Nike Shoes” feature. This helps log the mileage on your shoes and notifies you when it is time to buy new ones. Strava’s focus is that you buy their monthly subscription for extra features (past effort comparisons, compete for segments, advanced metrics, training dashboard, suggested routes, and more).
• Fitness applications grew by 46% worldwide in COVID-19, gyms were forced to close or go digital.
• Daily active usage for fitness applications grew by 24% worldwide in COVID-19.
• According to Apptopia in the heat of the pandemic, below is an example of the uptick in daily global downloads in the height of the pandemic for fitness applications.
• Nike Run Club users want connections with other runners. For example, a user rated the application three stars because they want the option to sync to competitor apps like Strava (which has a community of athletes) to share their progress with friends and local running groups. The user also mentioned the lack of community in Nike Run Club, which does not allow them to connect with other runners in their area.

Competitive Analyses

Since there are a number of running tools that exist online, I went ahead and compared a few of the most popular ones.

My competitive analyses findings include:

• Strava is the only tool that can let you connect with people from your contacts and local community (and rich in running features).
• Running applications like Couch to 5k seems to be the only application with few features.
• Running applications such as Runtastic, Garmin, and Fitbit seem to have enough of the standard features to track running stats well. What they don’t have is a feature to connect with contacts and other runners locally.

This motivated me to: