Under Armour

Our first step was to do research for both the Newsroom and Corporate websites. A total of  twenty-five Under Armour stakeholders were interviewed, ranging from very legal roles, such as the sustainability director, to the UX Design lead, and Brand Director of the company. The next step was to synthesize the interviews through an affinity map to uncover the most important pain points and opportunities. Then, the final step was to conduct a competitor analysis to determine existing or missing features that Under Armour would be able to capitalize on.

During the affinity map process, the Hiker Team was able to determine who the audience was, and what their goals and needs were.

Members of the press and media that will be running a pick up story on product / campaign launches to activations to company news from a brand perspective.

Easy access to news and images in the most user friendly/intuitive way to help them reiterate UA’s story. Exclusives. Opt-in for Segmentation. (ex. Sports Illustrated, AdAge, PopSugar, Footwear News, etc. )

Enthusiasts that have a strong following on blogs or social media either about sports, footwear, athletes, digital, fashion (which may feature UA product, or UA as a brand and organization).

Able to download images and shareable content with fans and followers quickly in order to inspire and drive their followers to activate. They also need to feel that social media is a seamless integration throughout the site.

From executives in the industry to athletes and ex athletes, this audience may have thought pieces on the topic of sports or product, are often quoted or interviewed and write on Medium, LinkedIn or other social sharing platforms.

This audience needs to feel inspired in order to capture their interest and want to share their thoughts on what is being published. Easily digestible content that feels fresh with a cadence that always captures attention.

They not only believe in the mantra “UA makes you better”, they live it. From training to accomplishing personal fitness goals, to utilizing the apps, these consumers often evoke mini viral campaigns through social media and their personal network.

Need to feel like UA is speaking directly to them. Personalization or having a sense of being truly involved or spoken to.

The analysis was able to uncover examples of well executed design, along with prioritized features to focus on.

Navigation: In order to have brand consistency when browsing through any of the UA websites, the mega navigation should be global. Typography should feel consistent through the sites, laddering up to the UA Brand.

Hierarchy must drive story experience. Featured articles or “most read” lists will improve discovery. Use contextual tagging to drive readers to related stories.

Press benefits from cart functionality to store visual assets Single download experience means the user work flow is uninterrupted.

A library with a filter/ sort, for visual/video assets so that members of media don’t have to search through specific articles to get what they need quickly.

Share: Integrate social media channels into the footer and news articles.

Feed(s): Social Media feeds on home FB, TW, IN (either all or some).

Sticky footer notification when entering the site, to sign-up for the newsletter, that in time will allow users to pick and choose what type of news to subscribe for.

Future Events: A calendar to promote future events, that users can attend and even share to friends.

Past Events: Recaps of activation and events with photos/ video and other forms of rich media to drive up brand awareness.

Named as such can allow for smooth transition from external sites to content incorporated into main site. Can also allow for a centered visitor experience around an important content type.

Due to time and resources, a majority of our user testing was done through Maze. We had a total of 28 Maze Testers, and 1 in-person user test. We observed how users go to the corporate site from the newsroom, how users search for something specific, and how users navigate back to the newsroom.

There was a 63.6% direct success rate with 7 testers, a 0% indirect success rate with 0 testers, and a Give-up/Bounce rate of 36.4% with 4 testers. Comments mentioned that they could not locate any indicator to go to another site, causing us to design an arrow next to the corporate site CTA, to attract more attention to it, and to indicate that it goes somewhere.

There was a 66.7% direct success rate with 6 testers, a 33.3% indirect success rate with 3 testers, and a Give-up/Bounce rate of 0% with 0 testers . Not many changes were made, due to the search icon being recognizable, and even if they did not search, they used scrolled down to find what they wanted.

There was a 50% direct success rate with 4 testers, a 12.5% indirect success rate with 1 tester, and a Give-up/Bounce rate of 37.5% with 3 testers . Similar to the first test, users simply had a difficult time recognizing the the CTA at the top right nav, lead to a different site.