Speedo

Client
Speedo is an international swimwear company mostly known for their competitive racing swimsuits.

role
User Research, Creating Discussion Guide, Interviews, Immersive experience, Prototyping, User testing

team
Henry Tsang, Benjamin Meadows, & Rizwana Hussain

Brief
Speedo is a global company, known for their competitive swimsuits, however the number of people who swim regularly is declining. Speedo wanted us to discover new ways to inspire more people to swim.

How might we create a flexible mind & body experience that includes swimming in people's lifestyle to improve their mood?

Onsite Visit at the Speedo HQ in Nottingham, UK

The Process

Immersive Research

To understand how people felt about swim, we visited the Manchester Aquatic Centre to do immersive research. We observed and interacted with different types people at the swimming pool (ie: families, seniors, children, and those training in swim). The focus of this was to gain more understanding about behaviors and attitudes from people who were already into the sport.

On-site Immersive Research at Manchester Aquatic Centre

Discussion Guides & User Interviews

From the immersive research, we interviewed people who swim casually and those who swim daily or competitively, to understand the appeal of swim to both user groups.

A discussion guide was tailored for both groups, to understand how the sport integrated with their daily lifestyle.

User Interviews with Varying Levels of Swimmers

Affinity Mapping

After collecting and sharing insights from the interviews, we found barriers that prevent people from swimming on a regular basis. This meant that a large group of people had the intention to swim but lacked the motivation to overcome those barriers.

People who were casual swimmers emphasized a need for a sense of community and social aspects when engaging in sports and fitness.

After clustering insights, we narrowed down the focus to 3 main points:
1) Swimming builds confidence
2) Individual mindsets differ between competitive vs. casual swimmers
3) Emerging theme of Family time & Tradition

Drawing out Themes and Insights From User Interviews

Ideation

Building on our work, we then diverged and ideated around how we might inspire people to swim under the 3 main points that emerged from affinity mapping.

Design Explorations Drawing from Insights

Opportunity Cards

Then, taking the strongest ideas from ideation, those were translated into 'Opportunity Cards'. Packaging it in this way gave everyone a broad overview of what the idea was, what insights it drew from, how it would be implemented, and who would use the service or product.

Design Explorations Drawing from Insights

Design Graveyard

After creating Opportunity Cards, as a team we discussed trade offs, target audience, potential impact, feasibility, and estimated costs in order to decide which idea to further develop for prototyping.

From the opportunity cards, we decided to build on the insight that individual mindsets differ between competitive vs. casual swimmers. Thus, reframing the initial question to:
‍How might we create a flexible mind & body experience that includes swimming in people's lifestyle to improve their mood?

'Kill Your Darlings'

Meet the client

At this point in the project, it was important to meet with the client and share our process and key learnings.
Meeting with stakeholders helped us communicate design decisions early on, as well as to understand their needs and concerns from a business perspective.

Meeting at Speedo HQ With Stakeholders

Land Prototyping & Testing

Building on the insight that individual mindsets differ between competitive vs. casual swimmers, we wanted to test and see if motivations mattered in sharing mindsets.

During this prototype we had participants perform laps in either a competitive or relaxed state of mind. We looked at the correlation of mood and performance in relation to each mindset.

Testing Motivations and Mindsets

Adapting Prototype to Water & Testing

For the water prototype we had two participants:
Participant 1: Active fitness style
Participant 2: Leisurely lifestyle

We wanted to test the activity between the two differing mindsets and personas, and wanted to see if motivations would change regardless of fitness level.

When we conducted this prototype in water with the participants, we saw that breathing affected their performance.

Script of the Prototype Conducted At The Manchester Aquatics Center

Gathering Insights

Further research showed the importance of breathing technique to swimmers of every level. Uncontrolled breathing can make you out of breath easily, and the imbalance can lead to muscle cramps. Controlled breathing helps recovery, and better performance in swimming.

An opportunity was discovered in combining the relaxation aspects of swimming and the meditative aspects of breathing.

Both Swimming and Meditation Require A Lot of Focus on Breathing

The Outcome

From the research conducted, and insights collected from the multiple iterations of prototypes, we created Deep Dive.

DeepDive is an app that helps swimmers of all level master their breathing technique, in and out of water. With DeepDive users develop confidence, and unlock their potential through meditative swim. The app works through a progression from land to water; you begin by practicing in the comfort of your own home and gradually apply these techniques to swimming. DeepDive aims to helps people become more confident and comfortable in water, release any stress and anxiety, and allow them to feel good.

DeepDive was presented to the stakeholders at Speedo and the public was invited to come test DeepDive at the end of the project.

Public Open Testing DeepDive

DeepDive Prototype

Onboarding Screens for DeepDive

On-Session Flow for DeepDive

User Needs Drawn from Research

Sharing our Vision for DeepDive Aligned with Stakeholders Value

Tools & Methods

Flinto, Sketch, Adobe AfterEffects
& Cinema 4D
Kanban Process
Opportunity Cards
Value Proposition Canvas
Screener Survey
User Interviews
Discussion Guide
Assumption Mapping
Desktop Research
Ethnographic Research
Immersive Experience

Culture Design

Team culture canvas
Check In & Check Out
Team Daily Emotion Graph
Team Feedback

Business Value & Client

Stakeholder On-site meeting
3 Client touch point calls
Value Proposition Canvas
Feedback session with Deloitte Digital

Project Next Steps

Having the full audio prototype, we’d like to use it with Bragi’s (underwater earphones) and test our water prototype again.

Test our hypothesis that this would help beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels of swimmers.

Create test content for advanced levels to see if in-time coaching would help achieve their swim goals.
‍
Integrate with Speedo On community to see impact on engagement.

Teammates Henry, Ben & Riz