Nexo was a concept curated by me during a design challenge held at the art academy Lidem in Barcelona back in 2019. I participated in the project as a UX-designer and team-leader for two students from Lidem and two students from my exchange university in Antwerp. Our team was competing against 5 other groups working on the same brief.
“Barcelona is the epicentre for the world of urban sports activities. Tens of thousands of surfers, skateboarders and inline-skaters visit the city each year to participate in what our beautiful Catalonian city has to offer. Your challenge for this week is to come up and design a concept that allows enthusiasts to easily find locations, think beyond maps!"
It is 22 degrees on an October morning and an energised Anton spent an awesome weekend in Barcelona drinking cheap wine eating tapas with the locals. I’m sitting in the hall of the art academy, and I‘m patiently waiting for the teachers to step up and tell us what groups we will be divided in. After being assigned design teams I tried my best to remember everyone's names and called them over to join me at a table. We all had a laugh as we were told to choose a team leader, as I already took initiative to get to know everyone the choice was unanimous. Next up it was straight into the action as the brief was introduced.
We started our creative process by forming a persona, Lucas Österberg. Lucas was created to guide the team in the same direction in regards to the ideation of the concept. This persona was the centrepiece of the creative sessions I organised for the team during the first day. Some of the students were a bit sceptical as they had not participated in a brainstorming session before, but the end results spoke for themselves.
As a Ux Designer, you know how important researching and ideation is before doubling down on concepts. During those morning hours, we dove deep into other projects and what unites urban sports and their related brands. As the other teams already fired up Adobe Illustrator to start working on their logos, I weighted the importance of knowing the context of our design problem. Fortunately, my team was very welcoming of me introducing them to my creative process.
We brainstormed about the target group, their needs and their struggles. The focus of the session was to engage the target group (urban sports enthusiasts) to get off their couches and participate physically in the urban sports scene. As most often when working as a group the final idea was a combination of many touch-points. We also created mood boards to collect thoughts, ideas, colour schemes and moods in one place and define a coherent design concept without risk of losing sight of the bigger picture.
The Nexo app is a map application that showcases urban-sports hotspots around Barcelona. The hotspots in the app have user-generated content tied (videos & pictures filmed at the location) to them. The twist is that for a user to unlock this content (s)he needs to be physically present at the hotspot.
Nexo Points are located at the physical hotspots around the city. They are displays that show an interactive map of Barcelona and user-generated content. Users can connect to the Nexo displays to unlock - and upload the content within the Nexo App.
Together as a team through our creative sessions, we designed a the Nexo logo and the visual brand identity surrounding our concept. The name, Nexo, means connection, linking & relationship in Spanish. We chose a Spanish name, because of the location, but we went for an easily pronounceable name so that our target group of foreigners could easily pronounce it. The colours of the brand represent dynamism, energy & optimism. The orange pin as the letter 'O' plays a key role in the Nexo application.
After we had designed our logo and brand identity, I worked full-time designing and prototyping the NEXO app. The Nexo app has a map, but it is not a map application. For navigation better alternatives are already out there. The app's value is that it engages its users to participate in the urban sports scene both virtually within the social platform of the app but also by visiting the different hotspots in real life.
One of our team members had just started learning 3D design and actualised the Nexo Point in a real-life environment. The Nexo Points act as a facilitator to nudge the userbase to arrive at the hotspot itself. On the screen, they can see a map of Barcelona with other hotspots, advertisements for events related to urban sports and the user-generated content such as tricks filmed at the hot spot location itself.
After all the hard work we had put into the sprint it was time to pitch our project to the jury consisting of three pro urban sports athletes and two professional designers. Nervousness was present, but so was confidence in our concept, and the presentation well. So well in fact that in the end our project was selected unanimously as the best project by the jury. The feeling was ecstatic as I got to skate back home to my Airbnb with the golden skateboard I was awarded with.