The project
This conceptual project is a B2B2C digital tool for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academies, developed during my UX/UI design training. Though not commercially launched, it was created under expert guidance, following best UX/UI practices. Despite being a school project, extensive market research shows it has significant potential as a commercial product, indicating a strong market opportunity. I am currently discussing with a BJJ school the implementation of an MVP that could meet some of their basic needs.
Timeline
Empathyse
User-centric research to empathetically understand the problem being solved.
Define
Defines the issue, develops personas, and generates hypotheses from research insights.
Ideate
Generating creative ideas through brainstorming and exploring possible solutions.
Prototype
Creating interactive models for user testing.
Testing
Evaluating user interaction with the product.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) has gained global popularity, increasing competition among schools. To combat potential market oversaturation, we developed Viper Dojo, a digital product designed to help BJJ schools stand out and thrive.
BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU
Phase 1: Empathise
Overarching questions
The first step involved defining research parameters within the Jiu-Jitsu sphere to identify opportunities, understand the audience, and evaluate the product's potential impact and financial viability.
What's essential for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu learning and business expansion?
How can this tool assist BJJ schools in increasing student numbers, retention, and satisfaction?
How can we provide value to both students and schools, ensuring our product's success?
Gathering data
1. QUALITATIVE STUDY: We delved into the distinctive experiences of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) through the eyes of business owners, coaches, and students by undertaking a qualitative research study. This included comprehensive interviews, focus groups, and direct observations at training sessions.
2. COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS Our analysis involved comparing existing digital products to identify opportunities and potential challenges. Through this, we aimed to understand if and how products currently on the market meet the needs highlighted in our research.
Phase 2: Define
This stage focuses on establishing the foundation for our product's development using research data and confirming the insights.
Research synthesis
3. AFFINITY MAP: To synthesize insights from our qualitative research, we constructed an affinity map to categorize and prioritize data, revealing patterns and themes in user feedback. It guided us in understanding user needs and pain points, shaping the direction of our design strategy.
5. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH FOR VALIDATION: To verify the main findings from our qualitative study and eliminate speculation, we carried out a focused quantitative survey involving a larger group of potential users during the second phase of our research.
Key findings
The research process, which combined qualitative research, synthesis, and quantitative validation, identified the following Key Findings in a satisfactorily clear manner:
BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE
Management
There is no consensus about a good management tool. Very often, they create their own tools or use tools that are not specific to this type of business.
Communication
There is a lack of an efficient communication system with students, with frequent criticisms of flaws in tools such as attendance books, memberships, and online stores.
Retention/Growth
Retention is a major challenge for BJJ schools. 80% of new students quit within the first three months, finding BJJ very difficult.
STUDENTS' PERSPECTIVE
Memorization
Students struggle to memorize techniques, often recording videos or taking notes instead of asking questions or seeking additional demonstrations.
Communication
Team interactions, event updates, inquiries, and receiving input from coaches present challenges, underscoring issues with effective communication
Organization
Students face challenges in accessing and interacting with digital content at their schools due to organization and availability issues.
Framing hyphotesis
We believe that developing a user-friendly digital product that effectively addresses both school owners and students' needs could be the solution for schools to operate better by having improved control, communication, and educational support for students. This way, the primary issue of student turnover can be mitigated, thus creating a stronger competitive advantage in the market.
Who do we serve?
Grasping who our users are is essential for achieving our objectives. See the details on our personas below.
How do we win their hearts?
The User Journey for a BJJ business owner and their students outlines the expected market introduction of our product in generic terms. Though broad, it's a strategy-defining exercise to understand our role and deliver value.
BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE
STUDENTS' PERSPECTIVE
Phase 3: Ideate
Brainstorming
Leveraging UX/UI best practices and ideation techniques, we've generated a collection of ideas capable of adding expected value to the product, ready for the next phase of prioritization.
Prioritization
In the second phase, we applied the impact-effort matrix to prioritize features based on user value and implementation complexity. This method, popular in Six Sigma, design thinking, and Agile, identifies high-impact, low-effort features efficiently.
Sketching and wireframing
During the second phase of brainstorming, we used several sketching techniques that included Crazy 8s but focused more on visualizing features through low-fidelity wireframes. This approach not only improves understanding but also visualizes the goals that have to be met. Here's an example of a round of sketches for a low-fidelity prototype created during the early stages of the project.
Applying design best practices
We've applied design best practices to our product's UI, focusing on clarity, consistency, and responsiveness to ensure a seamless user experience. By incorporating user feedback early and prioritizing accessibility, our interface is both intuitive and visually appealing,
Main features for students
Structured content
We suggest structuring the Jiu-Jitsu school's content so that students can easily revisit and use the app for memorization and practice, while also tracking their progress between completed and pending content.
Network
A feature designed to connect students within a school, acting as a kind of social network among enrolled students in a specific location. This streamlines communication and fosters a stronger sense of community
Control
Other tools available on the platform assist students in managing important information such as attendance records, teacher feedback, purchasing, and account management, among other functionalities.
Phase 4: Prototype
Below, you can explore our FIGMA clickable prototype to discover the main features of our product.
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Phase 5: Testing/Wrapping up
Given that this is an educational project aimed at mimicking a real UX/UI project, and was designed by a solo team member, our ability to test the product with a large audience was limited. However, we were able to carry out some basic usability testing, including A/B tests and recording user interactions. These tests indicated that the workflows are functioning as intended. There are still improvements to be made, but I am eager to share my learning journey with you.