UA Next App
tl;dr
Create the “home of highlights” for the next generation (7yrs-12yrs) of UA Next athletes. Prove traction in a mobile only web based product in the short term.
role
I was the lead product designer & touched every phase of the UA Next project. Including: creating a playable prototypes, leading the digital strategy, customer interviews & research, flows, wireframes, and UI look & feel. The project exceeded every traction metric the brand team established and was the most successful launch of the UA Next challenge to date.
Design Goals
Just as designers showcase their best work inside of Dribbble, we would give young athletes to showcase their training, skills, and in-game moments. The goal was to prove viability with a short term program and extend it to a platform that athletes would use to become a future UA Next athlete. The challenge was to execute this in a mobile-only web based experience. The web app had to feel responsive by keeping k-weight as low as possible.
Program Teaser
Content Highlights
UXD
Design Goals
- Create an instagram-like experience without the native app capabilities
- Make the app feel native without being native
- Keep the app k-weight as low as possible
- Find ways to reduce high friction registration that had to be COPPA compliant
- Focus on feedback loops (email & sms) that would increase returns & usage
Research Highlights
- 85% of college coaches are using social media to help identify potential recruits
- Young athletes are DMing coaches and using social platforms to connect directly
- Jaden Newman (145k followers, Instagram) at 9 years old recruited by University of Miami
- Zion Williams became a YouTube & Instagram sensation starting at 14 yrs old.
- Jaliyah Manuel is an 8 year old basketball prodigy (121k followers, Instagram)
- There are 14.5m kids under 11 who use Instagram
- Data plans are expensive in Canada
UI Flows & Views
The registration flow was heavily iterated upon both before and immediately after release. The challenge was to try to reduce the amount of required information and information overhead while staying COPPA compliant. Additionally, the brand required specific contact information to chose winners.
lightweight ui design
Ways to Improve
- Multiple video upload: We noticed during the usage of the program that uploads were happening in "batches". Parents were uploading multiple videos back to back during the hours in which they got home from work. Our first iteration of the upload experience accommodated for only a single upload at a time.
- Go native: Going native would allow us to leverage push notifications for a tighter and more natural feedback loop. Additionally, it would reduce the friction of logging back in when mobile cookies expire. Lastly, it would allow for on-demand capture & upload of content.
- Approval Queue: The sensitive nature of COPPA and the project timeline we engineered a very manual approval / vetting process for content. We pushed notifications to a Slack feed on upload which then allowed a team of content stewards to approve / deny content. In the future we would look for ways to leverage a combination of human and AI review to keep the process responsive.
- Hearts: Hearting or liking posts was one of the most under-utilized features. We believe it was due to the mental model of a "contest" rather than a "community". Additionally, we could not execute a "double-tap" gesture for liking inside of the web-app.
