Nike Hyper Court is an on-court coach bot, where Players can now talk to the court and get the custom training program served up to them without using mobile data. This empowered thousands of Filipino ballers with invaluable training to raise the game on the street.
Nike Hyper Court
Despite basketball being the national sport of the Philippines, the country ranks 31st globally, with no aspiring players making it to the NBA. Recognising this gap, Nike aims to transform the landscape by introducing a training platform that is accessible to everyone, empowering Filipino talent to rise to the global stage.
Client: Nike / BBH
Role: Design Lead
The Idea
Turn the basketball court into a coach.
Nike and Google equipped courts with free Wi-Fi, allowing players to talk to an on-court coaching bot without using mobile data. The bot created personalised training programmes covering skills such as shooting, passing, ball handling and defence.
Outcomes
37,000 ballers trained
20% returned weekly
More than 40% of users were female
Awarded a D&AD Pencil for Brand Experience
Designing the experience
Our main audience was young players, so we looked to comics, games and old-school RPGs for inspiration.
We brought familiar elements into the experience: bold characters, short prompts, clear choices and visible rewards. Working with illustrator Arturo Torres, we developed the graphic interface from initial drawings into the final illustrated world.
Design Principles
Speak their language
Use bold characters, familiar references and conversational prompts to make training feel approachable and fun.
Keep it simple
Keep prompts short, choices clear and the number of steps low, so players could move easily from a conversation into training.
Delightful experience
Use animations and small interactions to add moments of surprise, with achievements players could collect and view in their locker.
"Over the past months, the impact of the programme has been monitored and the results have been extremely positive.
The completion rate is high and the number of active users is growing at a healthy rate. We heard one user even managed to join a professional league after undergoing the training."
Business Insider
Facilitating development
Working with an offshore development team meant the designs needed to communicate more than their final appearance. I created a design guide to reduce room for different interpretations during implementation.
The guide covered colours, typography, mobile grids, conversation layouts, illustration treatment and avatars. It provided a shared reference for how the illustrated interface should come together.
