Athlete Portal
Product Design Internship • Garmin
Designing a new experience for athletes to track and share their training with coaches on the Garmin Clipboard app.
Product Design Internship • Garmin
Designing a new experience for athletes to track and share their training with coaches on the Garmin Clipboard app.
During summer 2022, I was a product design intern in the Garmin Labs innovation group. I worked with designers, engineers, and leadership to design and launch a new experience for athletes on the Garmin Clipboard team training app.
In 11 weeks, I designed and facilitated in-person usability studies with interactive prototypes, produced high fidelity designs, and created marcom materials to promote Clipboard online and IRL. Since launching Athlete Portal, we've grown the Clipboard platform from 6,000 users to more than 30,000!
I had fun representing Garmin at coaching clinics and cross country races during my internship! These events were a great way to get feedback and learn from athletes and coaches while they're in their element.
Coaches use Garmin Clipboard to send workouts to teams of 20, 30, or even 60 athletes: they don't have the time to give their athletes individualized feedback at every practice.
As more collegiate and high school athletes start using smartwatches, they need help understanding their training data when coach isn't there to guide them through it.
As my mentor and I built wireframes based on prior user research, we weren't sure which features would bring the most value to athletes. To test our assumptions and prioritize features, I invited 5 NCAA and club sport athletes to share their experiences and feedback.
I created interactive prototypes based on Athlete Portal wireframes in Figma, drafted interview questions, and piloted the usability study with one of my labs teammates before bringing athletes in. Our goal was to understand how athletes interpret their training data, what training data they value, and how well the app interactions map to athlete's expectations. Athletes shared 3 key challenges that impact their training.
Research Insight
Initially, Athlete Portal showed a snapshot of health metrics without providing any user education. Athletes shared that they ignore health metrics if they don't know what values to strive for or what to do to improve. They want to know when they're not meeting the mark, why, and what to do next.
Design Solution
Now, recommendations for each metric are called out and explained to show athletes when there's room for improvement. Visual summaries with detailed data points help athletes spot trends in their recovery between training sessions.
Research Insight
Every single NCAA athlete said that keeping a personal journal is essential for their training awareness. They shared that while some aspects of training are important for coaches to know, there are other details that they'd prefer to be kept private.
Design Solution
Private notes give athletes the option to record personal experiences in their training without involving coach. If they want to share something with coach, they can write them a note at any time.
Research Insight
Athletes rely on coach to keep track of their race times. When the results aren't published, it's difficult for athletes to track their progress on their own. 3/5 athletes shared that the goals they set with coach at the beginning of the season can be forgotten or lost easily.
Design Solution
Athlete Portal helps athletes maintain their awareness about race times and goals. Personal best ribbons encourage athletes to celebrate what they've achieved so far, while milestones break down their next goal into concrete steps.
Every athlete expressed that their biggest successes and breakthroughs have come from reflecting on quantitative data like heart rate or mileage and qualitative factors in their training.
I shared design recommendations based on user research with engineers and product managers, and together we shipped 3 new features to guide athletes through their data and help them reflect on their training.
Thanks to the support from engineers, product managers, and my design mentors, I was able to ship new affordances and capabilities for Athlete Portal that help athletes learn about their health metrics and reflect on their training experiences with notes, goals, and personal bests.
Now, with Athlete Portal, Garmin Clipboard supports both athletes and coaches as they train together. Download the Garmin Clipboard app to see the Athlete Portal update in action!
Health metrics help you recover between training sessions like a pro. Learn about metrics like Body Battery, sleep hours, and resting heart rate with suggestions to improve your overall fitness and prepare for the next training session.
Notes add context about how each training session went. Write Coach notes to communicate important training details with coaches, or, leave yourself Private notes to reflect on your progress.
Goals and personal bests keep track of your progress for any competition or event. From clocking personal bests on the track to reaching new limits in the weight room, set your sights on new achievements and celebrate them in style.
I'm happy to share that I'll be continuing my internship with Garmin through my final year of graduate school and focusing on data visualization to help our users understand trends in their training. Check out Athlete Portal on the Garmin Clipboard app and let me know what you think!
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