Nike
Bringing the world of Nike into digital shopping
A project with Nike, exploring how people, movement, and storytelling could make shopping feel more connected to Nike’s brand, and help customers choose what to buy.
Role
Designer (Contract)
Company
Nike
Skills
Design Direction
Product Design
Research
User Experience
Product Marketing
Year
2026
Nike has a rich world of athletes, innovation, and culture. But once customers entered the shopping experience, much of that world fell away. Browsing became a succession of products against white backgrounds.
The clarity of the product grid was valuable. Participants appreciated its clean presentation, yet described an experience that felt flat compared with the brand they connected with.
The project explored how to carry Nike’s energy into shopping while keeping products easy to discover and evaluate. I contributed to research synthesis, concept ideation, and participant feedback sessions. The work shown reflects a collaborative team effort.
Understanding what immersion meant to shoppers
Across three research stages involving 200 participants, we explored both the current shopping experience and what people imagined a more immersive future could offer. An initial questionnaire captured participants’ shoe purchasing habits and where they shopped.
Our questions moved between aspiration and practical decisions: What would make online shopping feel more alive? How did people navigate Nike? What did they need to know before choosing clothing or shoes?
Participants wanted more human presence, but they also wanted useful information. Still photography left questions about how clothing moved, its apparent weight, and how it would perform. Materials and sustainability mattered, alongside the ability to find relevant products quickly.
These findings gave immersion a practical purpose: helping shoppers understand products while feeling connected to the people and culture around them.
Products in motion
360° model video · Now live
Participants wanted a clearer sense of what would arrive at their door. Still images showed appearance, but left gaps around movement, drape, and how pieces looked together.
We explored model videos showing complete looks through a 360° turn, alongside still photography and shoppable product information. Seeing clothing on a moving person offered additional visual cues for evaluating it.
We also explored AI avatars that could try on selected pieces, suggest complementary products, and assemble multiple looks. Participants could choose between preset avatars and creating their own representation.
Feedback sharpened the distinction between those approaches. Participants preferred real model videos. The avatar experience felt time-consuming and unnecessary to some, while others questioned its alignment with their sustainability values.
That response clarified what people valued: a useful view of the product with little additional effort. The more elaborate interaction did not necessarily create the more compelling shopping experience.
Bringing campaigns into browsing
Campaign video within product walls · Now live
Participants valued Nike’s culture, but felt disconnected from it while scrolling through products. Campaign stories already existed around many items; shoppers simply did not encounter them within the product wall.
We explored integrating short campaign videos into the grid, placing storytelling alongside the products it related to.
The design challenge was one of balance. Video could introduce people, movement, and context while preserving the clean presentation participants liked. It gave shoppers moments of discovery within their existing browsing journey.
Making the first decision easier
Smart filtering · Now live
Research showed that filtering was often the first action shoppers took after entering a category. We explored bringing the most relevant choices directly above the product grid, helping people narrow the assortment from the start.
Visual cards paired options with imagery and short explanations. For clothing, that could mean showing the difference between lightweight and heavyweight fabrics, or standard and oversized fits. Selecting a card updated the products below, while the full filtering controls remained available.
This brought product education into navigation: shoppers could understand what distinguished each option as they chose, supporting both quick decisions and more informed discovery.
Other Explorations
We explored an array of immersive features, some of which have not yet launched, and some that did not land well with our user.
This is a snippet of those explorations.
Materials Page
A dedicated space explaining Nike’s fabric technologies and their intended uses, giving shoppers insight into material properties and performance details.
Shopping Depth Variations
Different browsing modes let shoppers choose between quick, practical shopping and a richer experience with campaigns, stories, and product detail. This allows immersion to adapt to how much someone wanted to explore.
Locker Room
A shopping space where customers can organize saved products around activities or upcoming trips, add notes, and receive relevant AI suggestions. It gives shoppers a place to return to and build on their plans over time.
Nike Athletes
An athlete-led shopping experience connecting career highlights and Nike campaigns with products worn by the athletes. It offers a path from the people shoppers admire to the products "within their stories."
360° model videos, smart filtering, and campaign video within product walls are now live within Nike’s digital experience.
My contribution centered on helping translate participant responses into ideas, then gathering feedback on those ideas with members of the research audience.
The clearest learning was that immersion depended on relevance. Seeing a garment move, discovering a product through an athlete, or encountering its campaign could enrich shopping because each added something meaningful to the decision.
