Fancy Feats
Gamifying the Jump Rope Experience
Role
Lead UX/UI Designer
Scope
User Research, Wireframing, Frontend Design
Platform
Mobile App (React Native)
The Vision
When Lauren Jumps, a massive jump rope influencer, wanted to bring her tutorials to a dedicated app, we were entering a "blue ocean." At the time, a dedicated jump rope skill-building app didn't really exist. The goal was to translate her highly engaging, vibrant brand into a digital product that felt authentic to her community while delivering a seamless, gamified learning experience.
Research & Discovery
Because there were no direct jump rope competitors to analyze, I anchored the initial UX research in established, modern fitness applications to set a baseline for contemporary user expectations. To ensure the app captured Lauren's unique energy, I facilitated multiple collaborative sessions and moodboarding exercises directly with her. This deep stakeholder alignment ensured the visual direction didn't just look good, but authentically captured her personal vision for the platform.
The Core Challenge: The Skill Tree
The hardest design decision was how to represent the relationships between Lauren’s skills. They formed a spider-web-like structure, with several directions to explore rather than one linear path. I needed to make those connections understandable on a mobile screen while showing which exercises required other skills to be completed first.
Users needed to immediately understand:
- Which skills were currently available to learn.
- Which skills were locked.
- The exact prerequisites needed to unlock advanced combinations.
The Visual Solution
Available skills used Lauren’s bright brand colors. Exercises whose prerequisites had not yet been met appeared transparent and included lock icons, distinguishing them from the skills users could start immediately.
After a workout, the app showed which skills had just been unlocked and guided users towards possible next steps. This connected the branching overview with their immediate progress, giving them a way to choose where to go next.
Bridging Design and Code
After creating the wireframes and prototypes, I worked closely with the React Native developers to translate the skill relationships and interface states into the app. My role covered UX/UI design and collaboration during implementation; the developers handled the code.
Validation & Launch
Two weeks before launch, we released the app to a selected group of Lauren’s followers. Their response was positive, although their existing enthusiasm for Lauren may have contributed to that reaction. Feedback mainly concerned missing or additional functionality elsewhere in the app, so the subsequent focus was on expanding the product rather than reworking the skill tree.
The Outcome
Usage data showed users continuing to unlock more skills. Together with the early feedback, this gave us a reason to build on the progression structure. I do not have exact figures to report, so I would not present this as a measured improvement in retention.