The Most Challenging Project I've Ever Done...

...and Lessons Learnt.

In 2021, I was appointed by Great Interactive to be the sole product designer for an app that lets people check their overall fitness in a way that hadn't been possible before.

Behind the app is a highly sophisticated, data-infused sports calculator of exceptional quality. It allows men and women, tall and short, heavy and light, to compete with each other on an equal footing.

I wasn't fully aware of what I was heading toward...

To Make People More Fit

The starting point was the high-end calculator, the nebulous idea of how it could be beneficial for people's health and fitness, and, last but not least, game inspirations.

Discussions

We had countless back-and-forth discussions with the client about the core idea behind the app: How can it potentially monetize? How will it be used by users? How can it support the client's end goal of making people more fit?

We talked about this almost every week during the production process, sometimes becoming more confident and sometimes less, about what we set as the goal of the Overall Games app.

I can admit that we were "becoming" as the app was developed.

The Process: A Good Thing but Sometimes It Cracks Under Reality

00 Research and workshops

01 Wireframing

02 Moodboarding

03 Flowcharting

04 Conceptualization

05 Brand Identity (logotype, colors, fonts, animations, messaging & naming)

06 Design Iterations (lots of them)

07 Design System

08 Development

09 Testing

10 Deployments

11 Designing marketing assets

12 Pitch decking

13 Animations

14 Real-life events

15 Team (emotion) management

These steps of the process were often overlapping, creating a real startup-like atmosphere full of tension and release moments, hope and discouragement, powerlessness and zeal, hostility and friendship.

The image below shows the flowchart made in FigJam of the mechanism for inviting friends to a sports challenge.

Project (Un)Done & Lessons Learned

The project is running under the overallgames.com domain and is doing well. It is still developing.

The app became an infrastructure for Overall Games sports events that take place all around Poland to find the fittest person in the country. Who knows what it will become in the future?

I would love to share with you four lessons learned:

• Start with a Goal in Mind: It will make your life easier (and cheaper) both for you as a designer and for your client. It will help you make better design decisions.

• Start Without a Goal in Mind: Am I contradicting the first lesson? No, it's the reverse side of the same coin. When there is no crystal-clear view of how things should look in the app, you will probably experiment a lot, leading you to places you couldn't imagine without experimenting in the first place. We are learning creatures, and we learn a lot through experiments.

• Keep Your Emotions Cool: There’s room for frustration and boundaries in the relationship with a client, but remember that your value as a person is not equal to the success of the project you are involved in.

• Understand the Context of the Client: The better you understand the budget, timeline, backstage, and everyday business struggles of your client, the better you will respond to challenges in the project.

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Let's keep in touch

Do you seek consulting on brand identity, web design, or UI/UX?

Contact me: kubieniec92@gmail.com