Nike Rise
Client —
Nike
Agency —
UVA/ AKQA
Role —
Lead iOS Developer
Year —
2015
After the huge success of Nike Rise 2014, everyone knew the bar would need to be lifted for 2015. Building upon their success AKQA partnered with Artisan to produce a more advanced player tracking system and iPad based Court Management Tool. Hired by Artisan as sole IOS developer to bring the "Coaching Tool" iPad app to the court.
Users of the app including NBA legends Kobe Bryant and Lebron James were able to design and lead training sessions with the court and iPad with the players. Designing drills is as simple as laying out a number of action points on the court and editing the way these points are connected and timed.
Nike Rise is about "Progression", allowing participents to advance their basketball skills as they advance through the program. This was a key feature of the app where coaches were able to rate the players as they took part in their coaching sessions and see data visualisations of their progress.
Users of the app are able to select from a number of predefined drills or even design their own. Using a set of actions, it is simple to design a drills in a matter of minutes or amend previous drills. Features such as position and connection type (dribbles, sprint and slide) are also quckly editable to keep the drill moving.
Continuing my use of Swift, the app made heavy use of gestures and Core Graphics to make interactions as natural and intuitive as possible. A simple rest API is used to manage the players stats and drill data whilst a serial connection is used to interact with the D3 control system of the court.
The project was awarded with a ‘D&AD – Graphite Pencil / Digital Design / Connected Products / 2016‘ award in May 2016.