Djakhangir Zakhidov
UX Researcher and Product Manager
Case Study — Product Owner:
Developing an iOS App for
Martial Artists
I am the owner and funder of this App. This Project started in 2022. Beta launch is targeted for Q1 of 2025
What is it?
Video Review for Combat Athletes
The Problem
Ever since I started professionally training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in 2019 I identified a problem that was preventing me from progressing faster and getting better at the sport:
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There was no way to review daily sparring sessions, or rolls
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There was no way to receive consistent and timely feedback from coaches
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There was no way to document and archive the time I spent on the mats
As I suspected, this wasn't only my problem but a problem of all professional martial artists:
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The majority of martial artists from my gym told me they highly desire a way to review their daily rolls
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Many of my gym members, including myself, try to record videos of themselves with their phones
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Many influential martial arts coaches and champions spoke about the importance of video review and feedback
I found more support for these initial observations when I started reviewing the literature on this topic:
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Video review and feedback has been used successfully in olympic sports: swimming, gymnastics, tennis, wrestling
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Video review and feedback interventions improved skill, and resulted in faster learning of athletes
So, why aren't martial arts gyms and coaches offering such a service for their students? Here is what I found after some initial research, which involved interviewing gym members, two gym owners, and several coaches:
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Privacy concerns - will people be OK with being recorded on video?
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Liability - will videos be used for un-intended purposes (ex: suing a student or a gym)?
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Technology Challenges - It's difficult to develop an IT solution for recording, storing, and distributing videos
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Fincnial Costs - not all gyms have extra money to invest in such a system.
Coming back to instances of successful applications of video review/feedback technology, I identified key attributes of such systems:
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The angle of viewing must be from a position that can pick up key points in the movement pattern.
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There should be a relatively short time delay between performing and reviewing, and also between reviewing and performing again.
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Athletes should have control over the videotape’s "slow motion,‟ "pause,‟ and "replay‟ functions to allow them to fully analyze their performance.
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Athletes must have some method of identifying the errors in their movement patterns so that changes can be made on subsequent attempts.
The Solution
After months of ruminating on these ideas, I started conceptualizing a technical solution:
Product Development
This product consists of three key technical components: the IT Solution, the Cloud Solution, and the iOS App. Of these three I picked the App since it could help me generate more interest in this product and collect data even if the rest of the components aren't developed yet.
There is a great resource of talented engineering students available at UT Dallas through a program called UTDesign. UTDesign places students together with corporate sponsors to solve real world challenges that companies have. I decided this was worth a try. So, as a corporate sponsor I pitched my idea through a video I created to teams of students. I was so happy when a team of four computer scientists have picked my idea. What was even more amazing was that one of the comp sci students was Nooreen - a member of my Jiu Jitsu gym!
I was very ambitious going into this, thinking I could get both the frontend and the backend developed in the short time that we had. I quickly learned it was not possible to do this and instead we decided to just focus on the frontend.
UX Design
I was fortunate to have Nooreen on the team as she had a deep understanding of Jiu Jitsu and was instrumental as a bridge between me and the rest of the developer team. She helped not only translate my UX requirements into technical deliverables for the team, but came up with great suggestions about additional functionality that enhanced the overall user experience. A school semester flies by so quickly and we only had a few solid weeks for putting maximum effort into this
User Personas
We started by developing proto-personas to explore who our users are and what the may like and value in having an App like ours. We ended up with three key types of users: students, coaches, and gym administrators (could be coach or whoever runs the gym) who would be using our App.
User Journeys
Based on our personas, we mapped out intricate and detailed user journeys. Everyone on the team contributed in this process.
Wireframes
A highly detailed prototype was developed in Figma. I was blessed with another student on our team who was skilled both in programming and graphic design. She produced beautiful and clean wireframes which I only had to modify slightly.
Tech Stack
The front end was developed using JavaScript and React API. The source code and key branches are on a private GitHub account. A basic database solution was ideated using MongoDB.
Testflight
For testing purposes, the App was released through TestFlight. Here are some screenshots from my phone.
Getting Feedback from the Community
I was able to generate a lot of excitement and engagement with my prototype in the BJJ community.
I am working hard on raising funds to take this product forward.
