John Gibbard

Nike's attempt at social fitness has an Achilles heel

For the poor, unfortunate souls that follow my musings on Twitter and Facebook it will be rather apparent that I am training to run a marathon this year. Each time I return from one of my sessions I synchronise my iPod with Nike+ and the data from that effort is shared across my social networks. It’s probably a little annoying for people as it is issued as a mindless broadcast but it is important to me to share it with certain people within my friendship group – there is proof that sharing accomplishments like this with your peers makes it significantly more likely that you maintain the motivation to continue. It’s a topic for another post maybe, but it would be nice to exclude certain people from seeing the postings without relying on them to block it. In any event, I think sharing my marathon training is a lot more meaningful and socially acceptable than telling someone that I’ve just bought some chickens on Farmville or that I’ve checked into my local Subway. [NB. I do not use Farmville or 4square].

My beef isn’t so much with this posting behaviour but rather Nike’s desire to incrementally enhance their Nike+ offering without fixing the core functionality on which it relies. To take a step back, let’s look briefly at the tracking and personal data movement. I wrote some time ago (post now deleted sadly) about the rise of personal data logging and how it was peverse, though not unwelcome, that we were seeking data on the most basic elements of our daily lives. Running is a simple endeavour, yet we are now surrounded with an array of methods to track our activity; just as a quick snapshot:

Garmin
Garmin’s Forerunner and similar personal GPS devices track your runs and display the core data in a personal profile page that can easily be shared.

Runkeeper, Mapmyrun, Endomondo
Similar to the Garmin implementation – these are often smartphone apps that use GPS to track your runs. Some integrate with Polar or ANT heart rate monitor straps to overlay cardiovascular data (so, ‘effort’) on the route and pace (‘output’).  These seem to be the most popular in my social media stream at least, if I go to the Runkeeper site it even tells me directly which of my friends are using it.

Nike+, Adidas miCoach
Both sportswear giants have their own systems – Nike were first with their iPod-integrated solution and as Adidas have moved on, their focus has been on realtime coaching as opposed to ex post facto analysis. But, as we will see, Nike+ is not a simple universe…

Others
Of course there are loads more – Timex, Samsung … almost every smartphone and sports timer company have something and there are a bunch of opensource implementations too.

So, to return to Nike+ (since it is the system I use), let’s understand a little more about the offering.

Nike+ and iPod: At it’s most basic, your iPod forms the user-interface to a system that uses a shoe-based sensor to track your stride length and establish a distance run, with all the additional statistics around pace and time. This implementation varies on the age of the iPod and the additional equipment (e.g. heart rate strap). Synchronising your iPod after the run uploads the data to the Nike+ site.

Nike+ and iPhone: There are two implementations here, a native application that does little more than the iPod version above, and then the Nike+ GPS app – a free download which uses GPS tracking to trace your runs and – because it’s connected to the web – additionally allows friends to cheer you on via Facebook comments.

Nike+ GPS sportswatch: The latest development showed-off at CES this winter, a wristwatch powered by TomTom to rival the Garmin offering, taking the basic GPS functionality of the iPhone app and simplifying this to a watch interface at the same time as integrating with heart rate data.

The fact is, this product offering is now more than a little confusing. As an iPhone user I am able to track my run using any of the free apps from Runkeeper, mapmyrun Nike+, Adidas and so on. As an iPod user I may also use my Nike+ shoe sensor. So, I sort of need a reason to use one service over any other. The decision needs to be made based on a few things: Which device gives me the best data? Which device is least hassle (bulk, user-interface) and, crucially, Which device/service are my peers using?

Before the smartphone app trend it was a given that most people were using Nike+ or, possibly, Garmin. Nevertheless it was still tricky to find friends using the service and then compare your efforts. With the wider marketplace it’s even harder as people sign-up for a service, use it and move on. To try and differentiate their service and encourage participation, Nike + continue to innovate. Recently they launched Nike+ Tag – the premise is simple, runners have to avoid being “it” by beating their friends to longer runs, faster speeds or getting up and running earlier in the day.

The trouble with this – and the many other connected challenges on Nike+ – is that they are predicated on having a (wide) circle of friends using the system. In the case of tag, your friends also need to have the particular app and, as we have seen, many may simply have one of the other Nike+ devices. Unfortunately (and after several lengthy paragraphs we are finally at the point of the post) the system for finding friends is fatally flawed. Nike seem to have a long-standing problem with the friend search function within Nike+ on Gmail. Unlike numerous other sites, you cannot import other social network friends only search for signed-up friends via Gmail (which doesn’t work) or by using the native search (which won’t discover your friends if they’re profiles are set to private – which is the default). The end result is that despite having 700-odd people in my Twitter contacts, a hundred or so in Gmail and 300+ in Facebook, without being able to scan for them I have found a grand total of about 6 on Nike+ and most of those are infrequent, lapsed runners. Tag, despite being exciting and well-considered, is all but useless to me (I’m not the only one).

It makes no sense to me that you would build a service that relies on the motivation and challenges of friends and then have such a limited social connection engine. I am quite sure this isn’t the intent but the lack of attention to fixing the technical problems with it jars somewhat with the attention to rolling out new features that rely upon friendship. It all smacks of the same criticisms that continue to face Apple’s Ping:

“Without importing existing networks from Twitter or Facebook (inviting friends through Apple Mail is not enough), there’s a significant investment of time needed to set Ping up. Now social networking is more mature, there’s less appetite for putting in that groundwork – and why should we have to when our networks already exist?” – Jemima Kiss on Ping (Guardian2 ix 2010)

It is peculiar that at least the connection to post my output works largely flawlessly, runs are posted automatically to twitter and Facebook with a near 100% success rate. It’s a touch disappointing then that the simplicity of the service that  first attracted me has been replaced with a complexity in offering designed to retain me (via unsolicited feature-creep) is so hamstrung by fundamental technical flaws that I crave a more simple, socially-integrated solution that increasingly looks likely to exist amongst Nike’s competitors instead.

For the record, my Nike+ profile is smorgasbord, please drop by and be my mate.

We’re always on the look out for ideas that cross the digital and physical boundary. This week a Dare client told us about his great experience with Startriteshoes.com. He’s a bit older than their target audience, but his kids aren’t, and he has been impressed by their quality and fit. That said, to get hold of the product, parents will undoubtebly know the discomfort of dragging their children out at the weekend to try shoes, only a trip dentist can match the inevitable lack of enthusiasm.

Ideally this process would happen online;  largely quiet, no crowds, calm. If only you could be sure of getting the right fit. For adults, buying shoes online is easy but the frequency with which kids’ sizes change makes getting the right fit a little harder.

Our client was delighted to discover that Startriteshoes.com featured an tool (Click’n’Fit) that made the most of the ubiquity of digital cameras to allow a shoe fitting to take place online at home and consequently the purchase can take place without having to suffer the tantrums, smelly socks and sulky staff of the high-street shoe shop.

How Start-rite sole-ved the problem of buying online

1. You photograph your child’s feet positioned on a special grid (which you print off) in three orientations.

2. Upload these photos

3. the site responds with accurate sizing based on an analysis of the feet in relation to the grid.

I have seen plenty of examples of the web solving the friction of offline experiences (grocery shopping deliveries) and even the embarrasment factor (men buying lingerie). Start-Rite is a great example of using a digital environment to bring some theatre to the experience. Kids can get involved in printing and photographing each other’s feet and the interactions and relationships take place in the intimacy and comfort of home. Later, when it is time for more shoes, one could conceive of the children asking to “do the photograph thing”.

The success of Kodak was in taking a previously laborious film and developing interaction and turning it into simple cartridge roll film – “you press the button and we do the rest“. iTunes did a similar thing a hundred years later for music; it might not bequite so revolutionary but digital photo-sizing for children’s shoes means Startrite have left miserable shoe shopping on its last legs and at they continue to make kid’s feet more comfortable. Double rainbow.

A former fellow student at my alma mater, the University of York, is Dr. Mark Batey. Mark moderates a couple of great groups on LinkedIn. If dip in and out of these as a lurker. Though Mark and I both started out on the BSc. Psychology course, I would not consider myself of sufficient academic weight to contribute meaningfully to the specific conversations that take place in the forums. That said, I do pay particularly close attention to any posts about the working environment and creativity.

I consider myself a creative information architect. I certainly don’t shy away from the more procedural and mundane information science elements of the role but I get up in the morning to do stuff that is creative, not simply organisational. What this means in practise is that I sketch more than I Visio. I write my own placeholder copy (in the full and frank knowledge that others will write it better). I over-style my wireframes and fret too much about typefaces, imagery and visual design.

Consequently I am looking forward to our impending office move at Dare. We have an opportunity to create a space more specifically designed around creating good IA. But what would this space look like? What does needs-analysis tell us about this space. Applying the same principles we would to a digital experience, we want [tongue a little in cheek] to develop an exceptional environment for creating exceptional experiences. To this end, I requested advice from the good people at the IxDA forum.

The thoughts of the IxDA community might be summarised as follows:

On (Clear) Desks
Such a policy is person-dependent (some are tidy, some not) but consideration might be given to the ‘unfinished’ nature of the thinking process. Do we leave our work in a state to instantly return to? Does getting your stuff back out of a file/folder/drawer really make that process more ‘final’? Clearly, some thinkers Alice Twemlow & Massimo Vignelli for example, put great value onthe desk as a workspace.

On Stimulants
Books, articles, design magazines and inspirational visuals (i.e. print outs of pages/experiences we have loved) all seem like naturally good things to be surrounded by. My personal copies of Dan Brown and Luke Wroblewski’s books are in arm’s reach an very well thumbed. Jakob’s books tend to fill the spaces nowadays and Visio ‘bibles’ are used to prop-up my screen. It’s easy to default to online sources when a good flick through a reference book can work wonders.

On Separation
A few people assume that team collaboration can only be effective with proximal seating. I am not convinced that the team that sits together necessarily works together or the team that sits apart works independently. On myFry  I worked three floors away from the tech and creative team yet the end result was a consequence of regular collaborative working. The desire to achieve this method of collaboration has a huge part to play in overcoming the physical separation.

On a related theme, enclosures and cubicles are torn down and open desks that facilitate eye-to-eye contact remind us of being human. I loved Pauric’s thoughts around have a window to gaze out of, to dissociate and disconnect for a while.

I remember an article in Monocle (April 2010 Vol. 4 Issue 32) which mentioned Studioilse who had two spaces – a thinking space and a doing space. The concept really appeals to me.

On Noise
People need noisy and quiet places. Often the tendency is to up the music and create a fun atmosphere but I see plenty of people retreating to headphone-mode to escape the communal music. Equally I see people slinking off to work in silence… IT is task dependent. Churning through a templated wireframe in visio or  some repetitive/mindless task and music increases the working rhythm. Need to sink into deep concentrated thought, space and silence may be your friend.

On Vertical Space
Walls tend to be bigger than desks. Anyone who has been to Leah Buley’s excellent Good Design Faster workshop will see the instant benefit of vertical space for sharing and discussing ideas. Thinking, literally, on our feet is stimulating by virtue of its novelty factor. Think of the fast-paced radio shows that are presented by people standing or the scrum/huddle approach to energetic short catchups. Vertical spaces are key for projections too – projecting an interface and then scribbling on it might be a worthwhile activity.

On Things
PostIts (duh), brown paper (c.f. Leah Buley), drafting dots/masking tape, highlighters, sharpies, whiteboard film

On Asking
At the risk of being asked for a “faster horse”, there was the sensible suggestion of practising our craft by actually asking our users (us) what we need to be able to do and to develop the experiences and spaces to support those. Direct questions about the type of desk, chair or screen rig will get subjective responses a standard deviation or two from where we are today. I want to encourage a bit of left-brain thinking.

Other themes
Stephen Kochan on LinkedIn mentioned the Göran Ekvall work on the 10 Creative Dimensions which had me running to my Organisational Psychology books to refresh my memory (grouped around Resources, Motivation & Exploration). Worth looking into those studies if you have time.

As you can imagine, there are a gazillion links to good material on creating creative workspaces. I loved (thanks again Pauric) “The Brilliance of Creative Chaos” by Clive James in the BBC Magazine.

Right, I think it’s time to watch that infamous IDEO video again … just get trying stuff and ask for forgiveness later.

John (this article is still being edited and cross-referenced)

IxDA Member thanks
Sam Menter,  Matthew Nish-Lapidus, Sean Gerety, Pauric O’Callaghan