Endurance Running Research
Endurance Running Research
01_Intro
My contribution: Managed research planning, edited interview protocols, recruited research participants, conducted field observation, led insight generation, facilitated co-creation workshop
Research team: Ahmet Burak Aktas, Yen Meng, Cheng-Hsiang Yang
Duration: 6 weeks
Project goal: Gained deep understanding of the Millennial endurance runners' challenges and needs and provided strategic advice and actionable concepts to improve their running experience.
Result: Conducted ten in-person interviews, two expert interviews and four immersive running event observations and reviewed extensive industry reports. Created an experience model to communicate the insights, facilitated ideation workshop to brainstorm ideas with the research participants, and established a system map to capture the concepts. The learnings became the foundation to design <Nike x>, a new training service for Nike Run Club.
02_understand the context
The number of running event finishers has dropped 2 MILLIONS SINCE 2013
Themed races (5K, 8K, 15K) finishers accounted for 89% of THE DROPPING AMOUNT
Source:https://www.statista.com/statistics/280478/running-events -united-states-number-of-finishers/
Millennials are the major participants of the themed races (5k, 8k, 15k)
What motivates millennials to attend ENDURANCE running events?
Interview Participants
We targeted at the Millennials and interviewed with one-time runners and multi-event finishers to understand their motivations.
What we assumed
One-time runners are experience seekers who attend endurance running events just for fun. There is no motivation for them to practice running routinely.
What we realized WAS people attend endurance running
To relief stress
“My job at hospital is a highly stressful environment, I have to listen to many patients’ unhappy stories and give them therapies. Running helps balance my emotions.” - Joyu(33), music therapist
Because they just love running
“I grew up in a athlete family and started running since I was little. I do not run for a specific goal, I just run for fun.” - Andre(30), PhD researcher
To challenge themselves
“Once I achieve my goal, I will move on and take the next challenge. After years of running, I found the only two secrets are time and discipline.” - Ironman(36), fundraiser
To stay fit
“Marathon was not just about running, it's also core strength and nutrition. My goal is to look like a Victoria’s Secret Model.” - Yenan(25), student
1. Endurance running is a very individual experience, because everyone has different motivations, body conditions and schedules. There is no perfect journey that fits for all.
2. It is training that helps endurance runners accomplish goals, not attending running events. But people lose motivation easily during tedious training processes.
3. Multi-event finishers utilize the resources of running communities during training, while one-time runners are mostly trained by themselves or with people they already know.
4. Running communities create a virtuous circle that reinforces endurance runners’ experiences and keeps them in the running journey. But one-time runners are outside the loop and exit the journey after finishing events.
three Key insights
We discovered three key insights through primary research. The way the insights related back to the experience model reframed our focus from the whole running journey to just the training and community support.
Design Principles
Based on the key insights, design should be supportive, responsive and motivated.
Co-creation workshop
The team invited the research participants to join the ideation workshop. We briefly introduced the runner experience model and our key insights and spent eight minutes on each HMW statements. We collected about fifty ideas and grouped them on a 2x2 matrix with one axis indicating the value for runners and the other axis showing the implementation cost. The high user value and low implementation cost quadrant became our primary focus. We worked with the research participants to generate about 50 ideas by applying the design principles.
System maps
The system map captures the five major themes and draws connection with supporting concepts.
Result
The result of this research project was adopted to create a training service that creates personalized journeys for runners by setting milestones, providing flexible training options, and building a supportive community to help achieve their goals. Please visit <Nike x>, a new training service for Nike Run Club.
03_Research Methods
Primary research
We recruited 10 endurance running event participants and conducted in-person interviews with them. Our interview protocol covered motivations, training preparation, event experience, recovery methods, running equipments, circle of friend and changes in life. We asked participants to bring their favorite running object and share the stories behind. We also prepared drawing exercises, circle of friend and training journey, as interview stimuli to bring more stories to life.
Interviews
Gadgets and running journey drawing exercise
We asked participants to draw their running equipments and the journey of their first endurance race.
Research Participants
Our recruiting strategy is to find representatives by running event distance, 8K, 15K, 26K half marathon, 43K full marathon to over 43K ultra marathon. Because we only had 3 weeks to prepare and conduct primary research, our team found the research participants through our social circles. There were seven females and three males. They were all Millennials from 23 to 38 years old.
Field Research
To better understand endurance running experience, we also conducted contextual research in Nike Run Club and join Shamrock Shuffle 8K run in Chicago and immersed ourselves in runners' shoes to feel what they actually feel. For example, during primary research, we kept hearing the importance of community support and how it can keep you on track of training regardless your laziness and pain. However, I did not get the actual sense of it until I joined Nike Run Club event and witnessed the spirit and genuine support from the community, which motivated me from the bottom even if I was just an observer.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
The number of distance running event participant had been growing rapidly in the past two decades and reached its peak in 2013. According to Gary Roethenbaugh, the Managing Director at MultiSport Research Ltd., the past growth of participants was driven by growing the number of small and medium sizes of themed race such as the Color Run. However, unlike large scale running events, those themed races have found difficulties to attract repeated participants because of the inconsistent quality of experience. "We need to increase the value and create better experiences for runners and the community," as Gary suggested.
04_Analysis and Synthesis
Theme Clusters
We debriefed our learnings of research with each other after each interview. All themes were captured and clustered on post-it and pasted on foam core so as to help generate insights and runners' experience model.
EXPERIENCE MODEL
How might we Statements
We generated HMW statements based on the key insights. This process helped the team prepare for ideation session to come up with ideas that
