
A Platform to Create Joyful New Balance (NB) Community for Users to Share Their NB Lives to Boost The Buying Power and Form Diverse NB Culture
Group Project / Role: Idea Thinker, Strategist, Analyst, UI Designer, UX Designer, Motion Graphic Designer, Prototyper
July, 2020
New Balance Life (NB Life) is an exercise lives-sharing social networking function designed for New Balance, a sports apparel company with over 100 years of history. People love to show themselves. NB life allows NB users to establish themselves by sharing their NB experience. Combining with the online try-on function, NB users will quickly locate the preferred item by knowing the product from other users' NB experience. NB Life creates and diverse NB culture. It also benefits NB by promoting sales, gathering product feedback, and identifying the hot NB products efficiently.
Research
Basic Info:
New Balance (NB) is an American sports footwear and apparel brand that was established in 1906. It is one of the world's major sports footwear and apparel manufacturers and maintains a manufacturing presence in the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom for the European market.
New Balance claims to differentiate its products with technical features, such as blended gel inserts, heel counters, and a greater selection of sizes, particularly for very narrow or very wide widths.

NB Experience Guide:

New Balance (NB) currently has an experience guide app where registered members can get up-to-date information on NB Experience Programs and Events. But the app rating and feedbacks are low.

Competitive Analysis:
Among all the sports footwear and apparel brands, beyond the shopping app, Nike and Adidas developed workout apps for members, and the app ratings are high.
Nike Run Club is devoted to encouraging users to pursue running excellence by challenging themselves for a new running achievement. Nike Training Club is committed to helping all levels of users to complete the routine at any time in any place. It also ranks No.3 of 'the five best Workout Apps' on the website: Compare and Choose The Best One.
Adidas Running App Runtastic provides a similar function as Nike Run Club with a relatively easy-achieving expectation setting and adds a running shoe tracking and reminding function. Adidas Training by Runtastic is identical to Nike Training Club.
All these fitness apps provide training videos and personalized plans.
The workout apps from Nike and Adidas focus on helping users maintain their exercise routines for a healthy life.






Strategy Generation
Success Wins at The Turning Point, Not The Start.
The workout apps of Nike and Adidas are very mature. New balance should find the new battleground to win the market share.
Rethink the
Challenges

Competitors are very strong. The market for workout app is growing, but a single workout app is hard to stand out.

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The New Balance Experience Guide is not well-developed. It has a low rating, and users have login issues.
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Nike and Adidas's workout apps are very competitive and keep large market shares.
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Many fitness apps and websites are available to provide training videos and customized users' exercise plans beyond Nike and Adidas.
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Workout apps have great diversity and are specialized in different focus; they are developed by nutrition institutions, medical devices companies, fitness brands, etc.
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With different workout apps, many people still complain that it is hard to keep the exercise routine.
The Breakthrough



The Inspiration
People love themselves; They want to share their lives with complete control.
The popularity of the social media content



User interviews show there's an increasing tide nowadays for people to show their bodies as long as they have confidence and feel good about themselves; many people who keep exercising would like to share their exercise tips; for most of the people, they would like to share their life experience, like hiking, running, walking along the coast, etc.


The online try-on function will provide continuous incentives to attract users to stay in the app.
The instant try-on function for users is not only providing a trying experience but also stimulating their curiosity of testing different results on themselves. Many mobile makeup apps, like YouCam Makeup, Facey, are utilizing this psychological effect.
When people see new balance (NB) users' exercise lives, they might want to try the related product NB users wear. The instant try-on function can quickly fulfill this need. Plus, people can choose to upload pictures instead of opening the camera. They can upload a previous photo with a better figure to try the products, which will motivate them to exercise more for keeping a good fit.


The
Niche
We have so many life-sharing social media platforms, but we don't have such platforms specific for exercise life.
We believe that by introducing an exercise experience sharing platform, people who feel dull and not used to workout will experience a fun and joyful exercise journey to build up their health. Meanwhile, we will utilize an exercise lives-sharing platform with an instant try-on function to connect customers tightly with New Balance.
We will know this to be true when the New Balance market share increases through the high-frequency use of this exercise lives-sharing platform.
Three Words:
Fun; Colorful; Be yourself
Slogan:
New Balance, New Life
Logo:

Internal function:
Since New Balance already has the New Balance Experience Guide app. So the exercise lives-sharing platform will be designed as one of the NB Experience Guide's internal functions.
NB users can share their exercise experiences, training tips, diet tips, the preferred NB products, etc., through photos, videos.


Persona

Tom
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Age: 37
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Job: Accountant
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Education: Bachelor of Finance
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Marital Status: Married
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Family: Two kids
Needs & Wants:
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To connect people who have similar exercise interests.
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To keep weekly workout.
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To maintain the interest of doing exercise.
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A flexible and effective exercise schedule.
Preference:
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A way to make exercise life with more fun and more flexibility.
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An effective way to keep fit.
Pain points:
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Exercise is synonymous with boring.
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He does not have a regular time to exercise.
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Hard to maintain exercise habits.
Goals:
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Eliminate big belly.
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Build more muscles.
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Keep in shape.
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Stay healthy and energetic.
Needs & Wants:
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To be more beautiful and attractive.
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An effective way to lose weight.
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An easier and fun way for workout.
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To maintain motivation on exercising.
Preference:
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A way to enjoy the exercise life.
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A way to lose weight effectively, but not painful.
Pain points:
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Feel boring about doing exercise.
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There's always something for her that is more important than doing exercise.
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Hard to maintain a regular exercise life.
Goals:
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Lose 30 lbs first.
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The ideal weight is 105 lbs.
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Keep fit after achieved 105 lbs.

Laura
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Age: 34
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Job: Elementary School Teacher
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Education: Bachelor of Education
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Marital Status: Single
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Family: No plans
Ideation
Story Board






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UX
User-testing is conducted after the mid-fidelity design through prototyping. After several rounds of user-testing, the UX design is modified and finally confirmed.
Initial UX Design

Final UX Design (after several rounds of user-testing)

Potential Solutions
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Improved Strategies


Functions can be accessed by non-members.
Strategy 1: Increasing NB public influence through the non-constrain 'Share,' 'Comments,' and 'Tags' functions.
When opening the NB life on a cell phone, NB users' new posts will automatically show up after the flash page. Non-members can watch directly without registration. The Comments, Share, and Tags functions are also available for them, which can significantly enlarge New Balance's public influence by allowing people (members., non-members) to share, comment on NB users' exercise experiences and see the related NB products on any social media platforms freely. NB online store with Like and Cart functions also can be accessed freely by non-members.

Strategy 2: To better motivate NB users by providing the 'Select A Picture' function to allow them uploading a self-satisfied photo to forecast their look after they achieved the exercise goals.

Strategy 3: Add the 'Similar Items' function to the try-on room to enhance the user experience and stimulate the buying power.
UI


