Rollin Poe races himself with RunGo's Ghost Race
The Scope New feature integration with an existing product
Working with a fully featured already existing application with strong visual design, app vision, and user demographics, myself and a fellow designer worked to create and integrate a new feature for the application. The two of us started with researching and understanding the current userbase and examining potential users. We ideated repeatedly, working to envision a new feature that would argument the current application, improving the current user experience, and drawing in new users. With a feature in hand we then worked to create and test the interface and interactions necessary for the feature all within the current brand image.
Time: February, 2020
Status: Complete
A Couple Key Aspects
- Rapid understanding of an existing application
- Working within an established brand design language
- Expanding the userbase and feature set of a fully operational system
The Starting Line Understanding the Current System
The App
RunGo allows users to "find, follow, and create great running routes with customizable turn-by-turn voice navigation." Custom routes, live turn-by-turn navigation, and deep city integration are some of the core aspects.
Understanding Users and Systems
We took a deep dive into the application, understanding the flows and design patterns. Detailed breakdowns were generated both for style and interaction. Additionally, we conducted exploratory user interviews and think-aloud testing to understand goals and pain points.
Synthesis and Insight
Based off the exploratory work, we created personas for both current and potential users as well as one for corporate interest. Additionally we categorized and broke down user types and pain points, and began ideating new features.
The Run Design and Integration
Ideas and Flows
Dozen and dozens of ideas were generated. Some of the "bad" ideas such as mean voice assistants or delibrately wrong directions gave way to much better ideas such as virtual trainers with different personalities and a hotter/colder running game.
Iteration
We eventually settled on the idea of a "ghost run", allowing users to race themselves or others at anytime on any route. This matched user goals of wanting to add dynamism to routes they already use, while augmenting the current running groups system within the app by allowing virtual groups or catching up when you miss a run.
The Finish Line Full UI/UX Integration
Iteration Never Stops
Building off the intial wireflows, personas, and pitches we integrated feedback and continued iterating our design and flows.
A Fully Integrated Feature
Over two dozen individual screens were designed and implemented into final flows. These incuded alerts, onboarding, and unique paths. Each section connected to the others and were visually aligned to the existing RunGo iOS app. Mindful of the fact that our users would be running (and therefore not able to look at their screen), key elements such as direction, time, and status were designed to be accessible without looking at the screen.
The full academic report of Ghost Run is available here.
Update RunGo Brings Virtual Races to the App
As of version 5.9.7 (released May 2020) RunGo has officially brought virtual races to it's application. To be clear, this is a full 3 months after the GhostRun was created and we had no influence on RunGo's development.
It is, however heartening to see that the hard work we put in was so aligned with RunGo that the very feautre we came up with has made it's way into the official app.
Feature Comparison
- Ghost Run RunGo Virtual Races
- Race yourself and others Race yourself and others
- Voice Guidance Voice Guidance
- Run Real Race Courses Run Real Race Courses
- Online Leaderboard Online Leaderboard
- Custom Route Races Custom Route Races
- Social Media Sharing Social Media Sharing
- Track your progress over time
- (Discussed during ideation) Simulation Mode (e.g. on treadmill)
- Corporate Sponsors