In this case study, we'll explore the journey of NyceMoves, a platform dedicated to addressing the often-neglected challenges faced by athletes, including mental health, financial literacy, and goal setting. My role as the Lead Product Designer, working alongside the talented Destiny Fernandez, was to help bring this visionary concept to life. Together, we embarked on a mission to establish a robust design framework and cultivate a collaborative team environment.

When I joined the NyceMoves team, the project was in its infancy. We had little more than paper sketches and wireframes from our CEO, Isaiah Norman. The vision was clear: create a platform that could serve athletes from all walks of life, providing them with the tools and resources to tackle the challenges that often go unspoken within the athletic community.

Historically, athletes have been reticent about discussing their mental health due to societal taboos and the culture prevalent in many sports. This silence extends to issues like financial literacy and personal hurdles. NyceMoves aimed to change this narrative by offering a safe space for athletes to seek help and share their experiences, irrespective of their background or level of play.

NyceMoves set out with a lofty yet noble goal: to empower athletes through educational tools that address their multifaceted challenges. The platform aspires to become a one-stop-shop for athletes, from amateurs to professionals, providing a range of resources to help them succeed both on and off the field. As Isaiah Norman, the CEO of NyceMoves, puts it: "NyceMoves is designed to offer user-friendly, virtual competition with the far-reaching goal of enhancing the user’s overall athletic career through relevant video resources and video sharing."

I used the discovery phase to do research, create a best practices document and expand my ideas and options. Then, in a partnership with the Product Manager, define what are the key problems we need to solve to achieve the main goals of the project. Next, design our solution exploring many options that will solve these problems. Finally, validate our solution and launch a clear and concise answer to the problem.

Initial primary task flow

Wireframing is the bridge that transforms ideas into tangible user experiences. Collaborating closely with the CEO and stakeholders, I gathered their insights and vision for the Explore Page. It was essential to distill their ideas into a user-centric design that would captivate and encourage users to explore the app further. The wireframing process involved several iterations and considerations, including:

As a last UX exercise, in the quest to enhance the NyceMoves experience, we recognized the importance of gamification. We wanted to incentivize early user engagement, the deliberate effort required to earn points and in-app currency, and the cohesive strategy that unites these elements.

To fulfill one of the main goals of the project and designing the user interface according to the researched best practices in terms of color, typography and more, I worked in parallel to the wireframing efforts and created the basis for a  design system. I introduced a blue color for highlights and links.

We made the decision to go with the noto sans typeface on the platform to help with language scalability and minimize any typography related bugs. So I created a stress test to analyze the equivalency of fonts across the platforms. I also looked into the weights available to make sure the equivalency would carry through all weights used in the designs.

As the Lead Product Designer at NyceMoves, I was on a mission to make our platform more engaging than ever, and boy, did we shake things up! Imagine a secret sauce called "gamification" that makes your early journey with NyceMoves super rewarding. We knew we had to strike a balance, so we made sure that the more effort you put in, the greater the rewards. We encouraged you to dive right in, maybe upload some cool videos, interact with fellow athletes, or ace those educational courses – all while racking up points and in-app currency like a pro. Plus, I had the pleasure of guiding a young designer on our team, and together, we translated design magic into words that even the board members understood. It's all about empowering athletes like myself and those alike, and this case study shows how our secret sauce adds that extra kick to the NyceMoves experience.