Arjen Duits
Nike.png

Nike

 
 

Nike

Designing Nike Experiences

 

By Arjen Duits • 2022

 
 

Responsibilities

Research
Stakeholder management
Co-creation workshops
Opportunity framing

Prototyping
User testing
Product design
Design system delivery

 

Team

Engineer Lead
Frond-End Engineer
Back-End Engineer

Design manager Nike
Design manager AKQA
Marketing EMEA & US

 
 
 

In 2022 the Nike Experiences team asked me to help design a unified event management platform. One side for the event managers who set up and run events, one side for customers to discover and join them on Nike.com and in the app. I worked closely with a Nike Director and global stakeholders, from concept through to delivery.

 
 
 

00.

The goal

 
 

Nike Experiences was one of the most valuable parts of Nike's membership, but its potential was largely untapped. The programme had three objectives: grow sport participation, attract new and existing members into the ecosystem, and keep them there over time. The headline target we designed toward was clear and ambitious: 20% of members taking part in a Nike Experience by the end of 2025.

 
 
 
 

01.

Research

 
 

During the research phase we applied quantitive and qualitative research. We identified all stakeholders involved who were spread out across AMEA, US and Asia regions. Interviews were set up in different time zones. Most of the stakeholders were event managers, part of the global marketing teams, responsible for setting up and managing events for Nike Experiences.

We interviewed Nike customers who were interested in going those events. Because we were in the early stages of setting up Nike Experiences, we decided to focus on a selection of key cities in the EMEA, US and Asia regions. New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Beijing and Tokyo.

 
 
 

Journey 
Mapping

After conducting numerous interviews and observations, we developed a comprehensive and detailed experience map for both employees and customers, capturing the entirety of their online and offline interactions.

 
 
 
 

02.

Insights &

Opportunities

 
 

After identifying challenges in event setup for Nike employees and customers, the crucial next step was translating the research into insightful opportunity statements. A major opportunity emerged for Nike employees tasked with organizing events.

The current process involved completing a cumbersome form with dysfunctional features and intricate dependencies. Additionally, managers couldn't preview the final event page before going live. The system's complexity presented a significant hurdle, making the transformation into a user-friendly tool for managers a daunting task.

Our focus was on addressing this pain point, anticipating it to have a significant impact on both managers and customers.

 
 
 
 

03.

Solutions

 
 

Taking the lead in the design process, I orchestrated collaborative sessions with stakeholders to co-create conceptual solutions addressing various opportunities.

Despite early ideas surfacing, we deliberately kept the scope broad, exploring numerous proposals across key moments. From this exploration, we narrowed down a set of promising concepts, with a primary focus on testing a simplified and holistic approach for managers to set up, run, and track events.

I developed user journeys and flows as foundation to low-fidelity prototypes. Prototypes were designed to streamline event setup, management, and post-event insights through an integrated dashboard consolidating previously disparate data. Additionally, we crafted seamless customer experiences for discovering, reserving, and participating in online and offline events.

 
 

Trying out lots of different solutions in a quick and iterative way.

 

Testing with
employees
& users

We conducted extensive testing of a newly developed Nike Experiences platform tailored for Nike managers. Through weekly sessions with 12 participants, we swiftly identified a unanimously well-received direction: a unified, seamless platform enabling event setup as effortlessly as creating a no-code webpage. The principle "What you see is what you get" became the guiding theme, aiming to alleviate their main concern of not building the right event page.

 
 
 
 

04.

Delivery
A unifying design system

 
 

During the delivery phase, I ensured a seamless integration with the Nike Design System and collaborated closely with the design system team.

Contributing to the creation of a clutter-free, cohesive system, I worked alongside engineers to facilitate a smooth handoff and conducted quality assurance to make sure the experiences created aligned with the intended design. My focus was on executing designs that met requirements, maintained usability, and upheld visual integrity, aligning transparently with the overarching design vision for a successful launch.

 
 
 

Outcome

The new Nike Experiences platform allowed event managers to quickly and seamlessly set up, manage and gain insights from events by redesigning the platform from the ground up and turning it into one, simple platform. Customers were now able to seamlessly find, register and join events on Nike.com and the app.

With the groundwork laid, we were poised to collect valuable data, optimise the journey, and progressively introduce additional core features in the future through ongoing cycles of discovery and delivery — ever increasing the value for both customers and Nike.