New Balance

New Balance | Sports Research Lab

Challenge

New Balance is known for their research and meticulous testing to provide a superior experience for runners, athletes, and athleisureletes (we made it a word, I think). Their Sports Research Lab is a group of product creators who work directly with consumers. They select an elite group of volunteers to test products and deliver feedback to be used to craft the final product. But, the limiting platform and communications was constricting human to human communication and hard to navigate research findings.

I jumped…I mean...ran at the opportunity to work on this project. I needed new kicks.

Insights

Runners, they’re a spiritual bunch. In a panel group of runners to understand what made them want to be volunteers and even like running (see: freaking love running), we got responses like this:

“The euphoric feeling, man, it’s the only way I get high.”
“The clarity of the mind when I run…it can’t be matched.”
“On runs, I make games for myself. Jump the curb, avoid the roadlines, count how many stairs I hit.”

After a few conversations, we got it. This experience needed to feel like a community and it needed to be gamified. A gathering of like minded people who trust each other and freely share information to make products that benefit the larger population of runners. That, and an accumulation of points and status will help Product Developers know who are the right testers based on their skill set and the quality of information they provide. The better your information, the more you’re relied upon, so it was mutually beneficial. We were on our way to create the Netflix for kicks. Or, Netkix (failed titled, but I still think it’s genius).

Tester View

On the team was a UX Architect, Designer, Producer, and Strategy. We went through the process of the tester. Built the workflow, the details needed, all the parts of a shoe that could be tested and how the feedback could be given. Simple visual cues and gamifying the experience made this easy to use and fun. Chat functions and badges delivered a human approach of connectivity and achievement.

Developer View

The Developer view was built with modules in mind. No two shoes were the same. How many combinations? A ton. Or as one of the Developers told us “Well, a fuck-ton, I suppose.” With that said, we built this with a ‘fuck-ton’ of combinations to be selected by the Product Developer. It also provided us an opportunity to add ‘fuck-ton’ to presentations to management which were always well received.

Where is it now?

Unfortunately, the site is no longer live, but the spirit of the program lives on. New Balance used the customer communications and the internal learnings to develop a new program with more brand firepower. But, the Netkix idea is still out there and there’s a market for it. In 2016 $309 billion was spent on eBay buying rare and custom sneakers. But what if you didn’t need to buy them and just rented them for a few weeks, got the social cache, then sent them back. Think about it.