Techniques
Lean UX, Wireframing, UX/UI design, high-fidelity prototyping
Research Techniques
Qualitative Research (Usability Testing, Diary Studies, Focus Groups, User Interviews), Quantitative Research (A/B Testing, Five-Second Testing, Surveys), Competitive Research, Market Research, Brand Research, Card Sorting
Roles
Ideation, UX Researcher, Interviewer, UX Designer, UI Designer, Interaction Designer, Logo Designer, UX Strategist
Tools
Pen and paper, Balsamiq: Wireframe, Process Flow
Sketch App: UX/UI Design, Logo Design
Invision App, Principle App: Rapid Prototyping
Zeplin: Engineering Handover
Insights & Discovery
Discovery
Employees were struggling to find brand content in the company because of the inadequate platforms. They were trying to get contents from different web pages or other employees which ended up with various number of problem that include malware, loss of time and frustration.
Research
With the involvement of brand department, I learned that brand employees use a tool to get the visual that they want. I used the tool for long time while doing interviews with users to gather the current restrictions of the old tool:
Defining the Problem
Building a Five-Star Team
The initiative created awareness; therefore with the help of brand director a cross-functional team was being recruited to move faster. productive and to keep everyone focused:
– Sr. UX/UI Designer (Me)
– Brand Director
– Finance Director
– DGTM Manager
– Brand Manager
– Sales Executive x2
– Sr. Software Engineer
Problem Statement
With data that we gathered from employees around world and structured discussions that include HMWs on white-boarding and voting with the team, we defined the problem statement as this:
Our current product was designed to be database of all seasonal brand visuals (videos, images, banners, etc.) for employee. We have observed by doing user surveys and interview that the product isn’t meeting these goals because of lack of content, performance issues and unfriendly user experience, which is causing low productivity within employee.
How might we improve/design our product so can we get our desired brand visuals instantly and easily without asking anyone?
Research, Evolution and Strategy
Finding the Convenient Solution
Because of the technical restrictions of the old tool, designing a mobile application where all users can get desired content without any frictions was only option. In order to get budget approved, we had to align with the company strategy so the solution creates big impact.
With the right direction of our directors in the team, we found out that lack of brand (story, technology and product) knowledge and social engagement within employee was something that company was struggling with. Therefore designing the new application in a way that creates social engagement between users while learning more about the brand created big impression on higher stakeholders.
Defining the Personas
To create an optimal mobile application, we had to decide the user personas that are going to use the application. Inner employee was the main user persona but making platform accessible everyone around the world was really attractive idea. From the research that we’ve conducted we learned that some contents could be confidential, so we decided to create an app for our internal users only.
Competitive & Market Research
In addition to user research, we’ve conducted competitive research to find out what’s going on the market and how can we be one step ahead related with our product in order to create premium Nike experience with our users. From social networking perspective Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, Flickr, Vimeo and similar products, as well as digital products of Adidas, Under Armour, New Balance, Puma, Asics, etc. were the main focus of our moodboards.
User Research
To create a tool that satisfies all users need, we’ve performed various numbers of focus groups, interviews and surveys with the employees around the world. After gathering the information, I’ve conducted design thinking workshops with the core team to define the strategy and requirements of the mobile application. With card sorting, voting and prioritization we defined information architecture of the application and decide what’s most important features to finish for MVP.
- User friendly brand faced interface.
- Improved search and filter functionality that helps to user to find the desired product.
- Preview functionality before downloading the content.
- Customizable download options for the content by format, duration and resolution.
- Saving functionality to save the content for later usage.
- Feed functionality to put forward seasonal stories and contents.
- Easy sharing option while interacting each other.
Planning & Management
Agile Project Management
We divided functionalities of the mobile application in several design sprints with backlog prioritisation. Daily stands ups, bi-weekly sprint plannings, weekly refinement and design review sessions are set by scrum master with selective design and development team along with core team.
Sketching & Wireframing
It was very important to create wireframes of the application for visualisation and UX strategy. I designed various numbers of sketches and wireframes to give clear insights to the team along with high-fidelity mock ups.
Challenges
Branding
Even though personas of the users are decided, one thing was certain that all of the users are Nike users; therefore application should represent the brand guidelines perfectly. To achieve this challenge, I did comprehensive research while working with our brand team on other Nike applications like NRC, NTC, SNKRS APP and NIKE.COM to create pixel perfect experience from font to the other UI components.
Onboarding & Membership
One of the most important goals of the company was to increase Nike+ membership for Nike applications. I did analytical research about the number of current employees around the world and proposed to create Nike+ memberships to the all employee in order to use the application. Since Nike+ membership allows user to use all other Nike applications, with this solution we killed two birds with one stone.
Unique Experience
Even though it was stated that application is an absolute necessity for the company, tool had to offer something unique and inspiring. Because of this, I designed timeline section for the application to create unique brand evolution experience. The idea gathered huge interest, in a way to bring the convenience and different way of social interaction to all internal employees.
Learnings from Testing
Conducting “Usability testing”, “Diary studies”, “Five-Second Testing” and “A/B Testing” sessions with users before the development really helped us to improve the user experience. Instead of list view, using banner view helped users to navigate between categories easily. Bottom menu is removed with these techniques in order to enable more screen usage.
Story
Name & Visuals
Along with the company strategy, our aim was to create a social brand experience; hence there is a saying in the company that if we are going to do something we have to do it with Nike way, we decided the name the product NIKEWAY.
In order to create dynamic and sportive onboarding for application, I worked closely with our brand team to find the right visuals. At the end, I decided to use Lebron James and basketball visuals to give the jumping to the new social platform feeling to the users.
Logo
From the beginning, our top priority was to represent the brand perfectly and create constancy with other applications. Therefore, I inspired from Nike Trade Gothic Font and put emphasis on the word “Way” to design NIKEWAY.
Dynamic Experience
The color look of dynamic Lebron James Basketball Collection and Nike shoe boxes were the key inspirations for the colors of the application. As a Nike employee for a long time, my first thoughts were the crimson-orange colors; as a result of this Brand Orange was chosen the represent the dynamic brand experience. Pale Orange was chosen as a secondary dynamic color to be used in NIKEWAY.
Feed & Search Screens
Navigation, Filtering & Journey
Continuous Challenges & Improvements
New User Personas
I conducted research about the number of current staffs around the country and realized that company has more than 1000 staffs only in Turkey who work on stores. In order to fulfill the membership strategy, as a team we decided to expand user personas with staffs as well. With this way even though they leave the company in the future NIKEWAY, they would use global Nike applications since Nike+ membership allows them to access all global applications.
Developers
It is very important to come up with mutual solutions with developers in order create feasible product. In our sprints, when developers are stuck with the design handovers, designing alternative work arounds regarding to the feedbacks is the top priority.