New Balance
Are you a bad runner?
Many runners don’t give running form much thought before lacing up, leaving them vulnerable to repetitive stress injuries. The New Balance marketing team saw an opportunity to empahsize their committment to runners by providing them with a better understanding of running form. We proposed a mobile assessment tool for in-store use. This project was completed while working with Almighty.
User Interviews
Field Research
User Testing
Wireframes
Information Architecture
UI Design
Prototypes
Final Homepage Design
How it worked
We designed the application to collect video of a participant running for one minute. Afterwards, a running coach analyzed the video and provided verbal and in-app feedback based on the four Good Form Running techniques (posture, lean, cadence, and foot position).
Post-session, each participant recieved an email containing their video, their coach's running analysis, and useful running content from newbalance.com.
Affinity Mapping After Interviews
Minimum viable product
Our central problem was how we might provide useful evaluations without over-engineering the system. Should the application actually measure cadence digitally? Did we need to attach sensors? How might we measure lean when each runner is unique?
We conducted field tests with runners and coaches to better understand how useful running feedback might be collected, provided, and remain relatively consistent from coach to coach.
Sketching Possible Solutions
Engineering helped us establish functional requirements
Collaborating with our engineering team, we brainstormed ways to collect running data consistently and established functional requirements for the application. We agreed on two simple approaches: tapping the screen to track cadence, and a plumb line behind the treadmill aligned with a similar line in the interface to benchmark posture, lean, and foot postion.
Multiple User Flows
A tightly edited set of prompts
The final experience was a tightly edited set of prompts for collecting and analyzing participants' running form. Additionally, we designed a queuing system (displayed below) to manage the flow of in-store participants.
In-Store Running Analysis Queue
Example of Final App in Use
Launched at the Boston Marathon and used in stores
New Balance launched their Good Form Running campaign at the Boston Marathon and provided running analysis to over 350+ event attendees. They continue to use the application at New Balance stores and sponsored running events.
