Nike Shapa Soweto
Giving kids access to a world-class sports facility.
Nike Shapa is an Athlete centre in the heart of Soweto, a township and historically poor community in Johannesburg. This world-class sports facility is free to use, but due to a misunderstanding within the community, it is completely underused. Nobody from the local community knows they are allowed to walk in and book a field for football practice or plan a basketball game. Nike approached us with an idea to build a digital platform that would allow the community to register and gain access to the facility. They asked us to come back with a proposal on how we would approach the project.
All platform visuals courtesy of Jess Powell, UX designer extraordinaire.
Long-Covid.
This project kicked off in February 2020, just before the pandemic arrived in SA. Construction delays due to Covid restrictions worked in our favour, giving us extra time and allowing us to refine designs, UX and functionality. We implemented smart solutions for low-end phones and figured out how to give kids under 16 access with the help of a guardian.
Unfortunately, this project ended up with lingering symptoms of Covid. By the time the facility was ready, key clients had left and nobody was really steering it on Nike’s side. Some integrations with Nike’s global security became harder than necessary and functionality was stripped as internal priorities shifted. So some of the below functionality may not be reflected in the live platform in its current iteration.
Hi-tech / low-tech.
Our pitch proposal answered the brief and then took it further by showing how the platform could facilitate Nike’s ambitions of creating a future sports star. We factored in the high cost of data in South Africa and the implication of this in a poor area. Shapa Soweto is aimed at uplifting the community and its children, so we had to ensure our platform worked on older, low-end devices. That’s why we proposed a website designed for mobile and supported by a free USSD service instead of a slick data-heavy app.
Too many users.
Once appointed, we got stuck in researching various global booking apps to better understand the complexities of creating a booking system with an unlimited amount of users who are all allowed to book spaces. Then we mapped out user flows, designed wireframes and made a clickable prototype.
Colours & patterns.
We went through multiple design iterations, ultimately settling on a version of Nike’s global UI Kit with nicer colours that match what Shapa Soweto itself looks like. We also implemented an ingenious low-data mode which switches all images on the platform out for an SVG pattern that looks nice and is only a few kB in size.
Book & go.
Shapa Soweto lets anyone create an account and start using the amenities. Athletes can find upcoming open events, search for their favourite sports and filter them by activity. When they see something they like, they can book to go. This shows up on their profile and triggers a notification system to remind them beforehand.
Share with friends.
Athletes can create their own events, choose the date and time and see other bookings on that amenity. Events can be set to public or private and a share function lets athletes share events with friends or groups via Whatsapp, social media, or direct links. They are notified about changes to events or if they’ve been invited to a session. Nike can also send messages about events or offers.
Shapa is for the kids.
Nike’s global policy means under 16s can’t create Nike Unite accounts, so we needed to create our own, safety-conscious user types to allow kids access to the facility. Kids can register and create a profile, but they can only join specific events and coached sessions and aren’t allowed to create their own sessions. Our U16 accounts are designed to migrate to Nike Unite on the 16th birthday to unlock full access.
Safety first.
The platform features a unique user ID per profile which is used to gain physical access to the facility thus ensuring Nike security staff know exactly who is in the facility helping keep athletes and staff safe.
Super Admin.
Lastly, Shapa Soweto’s Admin platform is a fully custom analytics and platform management system that allows full control over the athlete platform. Admins and Super Admins can create users, and add, modify or delete amenities. They have control over the calendar and can take amenities offline to schedule cleaning or maintenance. They also have access to all platform analytics and stats. which can display anonymised user data.
All photographs courtesy of Nike South Africa.
