Dick's Sporting Goods
Bringing more customers into the physical stores for Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Problem
DSG requires new service innovations to differentiate itself and attract more customers to its physical stores in this highly competitive market.
Solution
Hosting in-store VIP parties for kids who play Dick’s Sporting Goods’ online game, School of Sport.
Connecting School of Sport to DSG mobile app.
Jr. athletes can check their rewards in their virtual wallet on School of Sport and send the invitation to their parents’ email to redeem coupon codes/VIP party tickets.
Receiving emails about rewards.
Once Jr athletes send the invitation, parents can view the invitation in their email and can be directed to their DSG mobile app to redeem coupon codes/VIP party tickets.
Redeeming coupon codes.
Jr athletes and their parents can select the coupons together which can be used in-store.
Getting the ticket to the VIP Party.
Jr athletes and their parents can select the details of the VIP party together and potentially invite their friends too. Parents will pay a flat fee for the VIP party. Jr athletes can try and learn how to use different sporting equipment with the guidance of in-store teammates.
Process
There are many ways to bring different customers into physical stores. How did we navigate through ambiguity and arrive at this specific solution?
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We started with familiarizing ourselves with DSG’s current services and how customers experience them.
so that we can:
leverage the existing models to innovate new services
uncover current user pain points and create solutions to address them
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We found that:
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We brainstormed 18 ideas that addressed the pain points uncovered in the insights and narrowed them down: By hosting an in-store VIP party for kids who play DSG’s online game, School of Sport, we can bring these kids and their parents into the physical stores.
Through our research, we found 4.8 million active users for DSG’s online Roblox game, School of Sport. They already established a certain level of brand loyalty for DSG through their online game and are familiar with the products that DSG has.
Most of the active users are located in the US, giving us ample opportunity to leverage this existing product for new product and service innovation.
The School of Sport game is a fairly new digital product that DSG launched in the summer of 2022. We learned from our client that they are open to investing substantial business resources to advance this product and the service it provides.
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At present, the Jr. athletes get to play games in School of Sport and earn style points to buy virtual outfits only.
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With our service, the Jr. athletes and parents can additionally get discount coupons and be eligible for the DSG VIP party.
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All of our key stakeholders would benefit from this service.
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Turning our ideas into digital solutions and gathering feedback.
Iterating to improve functionality
We began by sketching and testing our low-fidelity prototype to gather feedback on its functionality. Although we received some valuable feedback, we identified a significant challenge during our usability testings: one of our main target audiences was kids, and they had difficulty imagining how the prototype would work as they were accustomed to the polished school of sport interface. As a result, we decided to increase the prototype's fidelity to provide a more accurate representation so that we can gather more valuable feedback.
before
after
Iterating to better meet user needs
One important design decision I made based on the usability testings is moving the ticket selection flow from the School of Sport app to DSG mobile app for the final iteration.
This is because parents expressed concerns about letting the child choose the coupons and the tickets for the School of Sport. Moving the ticket selection process to DSG mobile app will allow the parents to make the final decision.
before
Jr Athletes select their reward by themselves
after
Both Jr Athletes and parents are involved in the process of selecting rewards.
Iterating to increase brand fit
Upon transferring the ticket selection flow from the School of Sport to the DSG app, our first design approach involved incorporating the School of Sport's visual system into the DSG mobile app to maintain consistency. Nonetheless, we swiftly identified that this approach did not align with the DSG app's branding. Subsequently, we undertook a series of design iterations to create a more coherent design that accurately reflected the DSG brand identity.
before
after
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How would the VIP Party space at DSG look like?
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Overall System Usability Scale (SUS) Score: 95 - Grade A
"I'm thrilled about this solution as it not only aligns with our company's mission of creating business value but also making a social impact. By fostering a strong community like this, we can build brand loyalty over time."
-- Ron Polka, Product Design Manager at DSG
“I am excited for my kids to go to a party like this. It has been hard for my kid to socialize after COVID and this party could be a perfect opportunity for my kid to make friends and have fun.
-- Parent of a kid who plays School of Sport
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This experience has taught me how to navigate through ambiguity.
When I received the prompt, it was somewhat vague and ambiguous, which made it challenging to determine both the specific target audience group to focus on and the best solution to address the problem.
However, through this experience, I learned that conducting ample research and engaging in in-depth synthesis can go a long way in helping me to decide what to prioritize and design decisions to make.
By approaching the problem with a thorough and thoughtful strategy, I was able to develop a digital solution that not only addressed the challenge at hand but also provided significant business value.