This project is a concept project to reflect on and answer the emotional state athletes are in. How can product make an impact in a person’s life in a climate that proves increasingly challenging to the psyche?
The year 2020 will go down in history for a multitude of reasons. This project was inspired by the emotional condition and the global shift in the psyche of people and athletes everywhere.
With a global pandemic affecting families and businesses around the world, a new culture of mass work-from-home emerged. Over the course of the lock down period, this became the “new normal”.
With this, there is a looming negativity resulting from the happenings around us. Starting with the global pandemic affecting millions of lives around the world, a global economic decline, increasing environmental challenges, and growing political unrest.
Depression and anxiety reports were at an all-time high. This put a high mental and emotional toll on people.
With this, there is a raised awareness for health and wellness both physically and mentally. Stemming from the global pandemic, people want to leave this daily inactivity in hopes to promote a healthier lifestyle.
This brings about a whole new wave of athletes that are escaping by running, training, picking up yoga, etc. A new athlete who seeks to take care of themselves and live a healthier life both physically and mentally.
THE PROBLEM
Many of these new athletes who abruptly start a training routine are not fully prepared for the new set of practices the body now has to endure. They are more injury prone due to a number of reasons all rooting back to a lack of training and education.
THEN THIS HAPPENS
Now injured, this person is sidelined from what should have been an escape. This can often lead to a feeling of discouragement and result in quitting running and training as a whole. We lose a potential athlete.
What can we do from a product engine to keep this from happening? How can we save this experience? The first step is to clearly delineate the goal in what to solve for within the context of running.
To begin the process it is critical to recognize the different striking patterns in running and to establish a baseline in what our target user naturally does.
The majority of the recreation running demographic naturally leans toward a heel striking pattern, which puts extra load on the knees and hips leading to future injury.
To improve the running experience, we aim to make for a better transition, naturally guiding the foot to a more forward running pattern, reducing the risk of injury.
To inform the design direction, the solution will be inspired by the running movement and by promoting that foot movement to want to naturally move forward.
