Decathlon Maps: connecting sports enthusiasts to local spots and leveraging practice data to strengthen decathlon's business

TL;DR
In 2018–2020, I co-founded and led the design and development of Decathlon Maps—an ambitious project born from a hackathon with Guillaume Gustin, Lead Tech of Decathlon Coach, and leveraging early work from Charles Anssens, Lead Tech on Decathlon's sports database. The goal was to create a service allowing users to find and share sports tracks and spots like hiking trails, running areas, swimming spots, and MTB tracks. Beyond UX, I played a key role in product positioning, convincing stakeholders, and running pilot tests with early ambassadors. Despite being discontinued in 2020, the MVP launched in 2019, engaging early adopters and providing valuable data for Decathlon's local offerings and product design.

The challenge

Sports enthusiasts often struggled to find local spots to practice their activities, while Decathlon lacked the detailed insights into user behavior that could optimize their product offerings and local strategy. During a Decathlon hackathon, we conceived Decathlon Maps as a user-friendly platform that connects sportspeople with community-driven spot recommendations while enabling Decathlon to gather usage insights. This created a virtuous circle: the more sportspeople practice, the more Decathlon equipment they use. And when they use the platform, they generate geolocated data, which feeds back into Decathlon's product teams and stores, helping them adapt and improve offerings.

Throughout the development, we worked closely with Quechua, Decathlon's hiking brand, to ensure our platform aligned with the needs of the broader outdoor community. We took part in creative workshops with the Quechua team, exploring how we could best serve sportspeople who enjoy outdoor activities. Ultimately, Quechua took a slightly different approach and decided to focus on offering local guided micro-experiences. This led to the release of the highly successful "Decathlon Outdoor" app, which focuses on providing curated outdoor experiences rather than just mapping spots.

Our objective

Create a lightweight, intuitive service that:

  • Helps users discover and share sports spots.

  • Leverages user-generated geolocated data to refine Decathlon’s local strategy and product design.

  • Engages a wide range of sports enthusiasts and encourages them to practice more.

Our offer

Our solution consisted of three main components:

  1. Progressive Web App (PWA) for Spot Discovery
    The platform allowed users to find sports spots for indoor activities or tracks for outdoor sports like hiking, running, and skiing. All spots were qualified and approved by Decathlon staff, ensuring a high standard of quality assurance. This helped users feel confident that the recommendations they were accessing were reliable and curated with Decathlon's expertise in mind. Users could contribute by sharing their favorite spots, thereby fostering a sense of community while also enriching the platform with real-world recommendations. The app also provided guidance during practice to help users stay on track.

  2. User-Generated Data for Local Product Strategy
    The service leveraged geolocated user data, which was instrumental for Decathlon’s stores and product teams. The data generated by users’ interactions on the platform provided insights that helped tailor Decathlon's offerings to local demand, improving product design and inventory planning.

  3. Interactive Widget for Spot Sharing
    In addition to the web app, we developed an interactive widget that displayed sports spots and tracks. This widget was shared across various Decathlon websites and integrated into in-store interactive screens, enhancing in-store and online engagement. It allowed customers to discover sports spots in real-time, both digitally and physically, bridging the gap between the online and offline experience.

My role

As a co-founder of Decathlon Maps, I led both the design and strategic efforts. My role went beyond UX design and included product vision alignment, stakeholder engagement, and testing with early ambassadors. I helped ensure the product's concept resonated with users while also contributing to Decathlon’s broader goals.

Key responsibilities:

  • Conducted UX research and defined use cases.

  • Designed wireframes, UI elements, and graphics.

  • Conducted user tests to validate the concept.

  • Engaged stakeholders to secure buy-in and define the product roadmap.

  • Piloted the MVP with early ambassadors, gathering actionable feedback.

  • Co-developed the project strategy, product positioning, and business model.

Key contribution highlights

  • Defined the product vision and positioned it as a community-driven service, reinforcing the link between sports practice and Decathlon equipment use.

  • Created a clear interaction model to make sharing and finding spots intuitive.

  • Conducted pilot tests with ambassadors to validate early hypotheses and generate data for refinement.

  • Built prototypes that guided development and strategic decisions, aligning both business goals and user needs.

  • Fostered collaboration between design, development, and business stakeholders.

Design process

  1. Research & discovery:

    • Analyzed community-driven sports platforms and gathered user insights.

    • Built personas and mapped user journeys to guide the design, emphasizing ease of use for athletes of all levels.

    • Defined user pain points: difficulty finding suitable spots, lack of data-driven product offerings.

  2. Interaction design:

    • Developed wireframes focusing on map interaction and spot discovery, ensuring an intuitive user experience.

    • Iterated on the UI design to ensure it was clean, engaging, and responsive to users in various outdoor settings.

  3. User testing & pilot launch:

    • Conducted usability tests and refined the interface based on feedback from early ambassadors.

    • Launched MVP with early ambassadors to assess real-world adoption, gathering valuable feedback.

    • Collected insights from pilot stores to inform future iterations and refine the data feedback loop.

  4. Prototyping & development:

    • Created interactive prototypes to test the interface and align with stakeholders.

    • Supported developers with design specifications and continuous feedback throughout the development process.

Results

  • The MVP launched in 2019 with positive early adoption among ambassadors and pilot stores.

  • Enabled Decathlon to collect geolocated user data, which could then be leveraged to enhance local strategy and tailor product offerings. For example, one of our ambassadors noticed more women practicing in their area and allocated more space in store for women's shoes, leading to a significant improvement in business performance.

  • Developed and launched the interactive widget across Decathlon websites and in-store interactive screens, increasing engagement with the platform both online and offline.

  • Despite being discontinued in 2020 due to strategic changes, the project set the foundation for future community-driven innovation within Decathlon.

Key learnings

  • Vision and stakeholder buy-In: Early involvement and clear product positioning were crucial for building commitment and driving momentum.

  • Pilot testing matters: Real-world feedback from ambassadors validated our approach and helped refine the platform for future use.

  • User-centered innovation: Balancing user needs with Decathlon’s broader goals was essential for engaging users and driving real-world impact.

  • The virtuous circle: Creating a platform that not only benefits users but also generates actionable data for the business can drive continuous improvement and innovation.

Decathlon Maps demonstrated the potential of community-driven innovation. The project highlighted the importance of stakeholder alignment, agile development, and real-world validation to create impactful user experiences. Although the project was discontinued, it helped pave the way for future initiatives like Decathlon Outdoor, which focused on guided outdoor experiences, showcasing Decathlon’s ongoing commitment to enhancing outdoor sports for everyone.