OSS Mobile: Elevating JiuJitsu Training Through Digital Innovation
OSS Mobile is a cutting-edge platform designed to seamlessly integrate digital learning into the traditional JiuJitsu training regimen. By offering a user-centric mobile experience, it empowers practitioners to access high-quality instructional content, monitor their progress, and engage with a vibrant community, all from the convenience of their devices.
Date
January - July 2023
23 Weeks
Project Type
Individual student project at Springboard
Role
User research & User interface design
Oss Mobile
Understanding the Problem
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Project Background
The deeper I got into JiuJitsu, the more I realized something was missing off the mat. While I love the training, friendships, and personal growth. I also struggles with injuries, schedule conflicts, and feeling disconnected. These highs and lows inspired me to design an app that supports every part of the journey—helping practitioners stay motivated, connected, and consistent.
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The Problem
Despite it being a global sport, Brazilian Jiujitsu lacks a modern digital hub, Most learning happens through scattered platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram, making it hard to stay organized or engaged. The community feels fragmented, with few tools to support connection, learning, and growth. Oss Mobile aims to fill that gap—bringing practitioners together in one space to train smarter, recover better, and build lasting connections.
Research & Discovery
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User Interviews
Before starting design, I had a few features in mind based on my own experiences in the sport—like tutorials, technique tracking, and community tools. But I knew real insight had to come from other users and not just based off the opinions of myself.
I conducted 9 interviews (7 males, 2 females), including practitioners at all skill levels and non practitioners. This mix helped me understand a wide range of goals, frustrations, and motivations—especially what might help beginners feel welcome or support competitors in training.
Each 20–30 minute session explored:
How they track or document their training.
(e.g., journals, mental recall, not tracking at all)
Challenges in both digital and physical learning environments.
(e.g., inconsistent tutorials, injury recovery, lack of structure)
How they engage with each other in the BJJ community.
(e.g., group chats, gym events, open mats, or lack thereof)
How they manage their health and training routines.
(e.g., balancing injuries, time, recovery, and lifestyle)
From the user interviews, we were able to also gather key insights that gave us a deeper understanding of the typical practitioner.
Community Feels fractured: Some people feel that the right training environment is a struggle, and friends often end in different schools because of location., which results in a lower sense of camaraderie. Creating a central hub might help connect people that otherwise feel disconnected.
Location and time are major barriers: Several participants mentioned distance and the struggle to find a good school near them that fits their schedule. Because of this, they end up missing classes and have inconsistent training. A feature like a gym locator or on-demand tutorials can help with real world limitations.
Non-practitioners are curious but hesitant: Some noted that while a mobile application wouldn't make them join immediately, it could help them learn casually and slowly grow more interest over time, especially with some short engaging content.
Learning is disorganized: Users mostly rely on scattered YouTube videos, and Reddit posts. However some more eager to learn, might use BJJFanatics, which contain professional athlete tutorials. There seems to be no structured, personalized system for learning and progressing.
Injuries and health are often ignored or mishandled: People want to train more consistently but often push through injuries or stop altogether. A wellness feature to support injury tracking or recovery tips could be valuable.
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Digital Community Analysis
I conducted analysis of BJJ online communities, including:
Content analysis of top posts in r/BJJ subreddit
What content are people posting?
How is the overall Reddit community compared to the YouTube community?
Review of comments on popular BJJ YouTube channels and videos
How people react to tutorials online and voice their opinions?
Which videos gather more views and why?
Engagement patterns on BJJ Instagram accounts and posts
How do users engage with each other in the comments of posts
What posts are users most interested in?
This online research gave me an unfiltered look into the reactions of users and how they interact with both content and each other in a community basis.
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Affinity Mapping
Click on the affinity map to access the full map on Mural.
After collecting extensive research data, I conducted a thorough affinity mapping exercise to identify patterns and generate insights. I gathered the information and key insights from the user interviews and created 120+ observation noted from the research and clustered them into six categories:
Learning/Training:
Users rely on scattered sources like YouTube or friends, with no clear structure for progression.
Many struggle to remember techniques without proper documentation or a place to track their learning.
Practitioners feel frustrated by inconsistent instruction between schools or instructors.
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Empathy Map
After organizing my user interviews into an affinity map to better understand the functional and behavioral pattern of users, I move onto creating an empathy map. While the affinity map helped me identify what users are doing—such as their learning habits, community, frustrations, and scheduling challenges—the empathy map allowed me to dive deeper into their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and emotional pain points. The combination of both the affinity map and empathy map allows me to dig further into the mind of the user and give me a clearer picture of the technical struggles and emotional realities of Jiu-Jitsu practitioners.
Think:
Likes the aggressiveness of the sport.
Hard to find good schools/partners.
Likes the discipline associated with the sport.
Does:
Watching others train
Looks up moves on Reddit and YouTube.
Training and learning with friends.
Feel:
Worried about injuries.
Feels that it is more than just a sport
Loves the competitiveness.
Brazilian JiuJitsu takes a lot of time.
Pain:
Often gets injured from the sport.
Not enough time.
Training and learning with friends.
Too far from nearest good training center.
Can’t find the right partners.
Not good with technology.
Gain:
Can find more partners.
Learn more moves and get better.
Learn other life skills from the sport.
Become more disciplined and patient.
Says:
“I feel more alive when I go against someone and completely dominate them.”
“I like learning new moves and trying to improve myself and increasing my move set.”
“I wish there were some more people a little more advance and the other purple belt is pretty old too.”
“I would like it if there was a good school right next to me where I can drop in anytime I would like. That way I can learn with great coaches and people, without spending much time on travel.”
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Personas
After conducting our affinity map and empathy map, we create user personas that would most represent what kind of users we will have. I created a female persona Maria Garcia, a hobbyist, mostly training for health and self defense. I also created John Smith, another hobbyist that plans on eventually competing. We wanted to create a persona that is geared towards hobbyist as well as women. We also wanted to create a persona for a competitor that might need certain features that will help them progress in their journey.
Maria Garcia
“I am always on the move and doing things for others. I wish I had more free time to do things I enjoy.”
Age: 35
Work: Nurse
Family: Husband and 2 kids
Location: New York
Education: Bachelors Degree
Bio
Maria Garcia Is a mother of two. She works as a nurse during the day. When she is not working, she is often with her family. She enjoys learning new things and does JuJitsu for self defense and to release stress.
Goals
Wants to learn as much as she can in BJJ.
Be able to use these moves in self defense.
Achieve her weight loss goal.
Frustrations
Too many responsibilities, not enough free time.
Not enough training partners.
Long tiring hours at work.
Personality
Introvert
Extrovert
Intuitive
Analytical
Cautious
Adventerous
Passive
Active
Preferred Channels
Social Media
Mobile
Computer
John Smith
“I may not be the best but I will always try my hardest and there will always be room for improvement.”
Age: 30
Work: Software Engineer
Family: Wife and 1 kid
Location: New York
Education: Bachelors Degree
Bio
James Smith enjoys watching sports with friends and he also enjoys physical activities. During the day he works at home and he trains whenever he can. He did wrestling in high school. He plans on eventually competing, but is just learning right now.
Goals
Train enough to compete in the future.
Get a job promotion soon.
Become a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu.
Frustrations
Not enough time to train sometimes.
Same old routine, wants to try something new.
Sport is getting a little expensive.
Personality
Introvert
Extrovert
Intuitive
Analytical
Cautious
Adventerous
Passive
Active
Preferred Channels
Social Media
Mobile
Computer
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User Flows
After the personas, I moved onto the user flows and red routes. These give me an idea of the journey that users will take to achieve their goal when using the application. Below are examples of 3 important red routes that most users will take. We have the gym locator red route, learning user flow where users can find a plethora of options to choose from to improve their game. The last one is getting competition ready, whether it is learning more moves, getting practice, or even recovery, it is whatever steps they will need to take to make sure they can perform at the highest level.
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Competitive Analysis
When I did my competitive analysis, I realized that there were no central hub for Jiu-Jitsu and everything seemed to be on aggregated sites such as YouTube And Reddit. In our competitive analysis, I checked the most popular applications used for Jiu-Jitsu, which was YouTube, Reddit, BJJFanatics, and Jiujitsu Five-O. I ran SWOT analysis for each platform and application. I also found out that Jiujitsu Five-O was an application that most fit the vision for Oss Mobile and was the competitor that was most likely similar to Oss Mobile, but least known in terms of popularity.
Strengths:
Large variety of memes, news, and other topics.
Large community with almost 800,000 members and counting.
Weaknesses:
Community-driven content that is mostly uploaded by members.
Not much structure; all types of content are included.
Opportunities:
Introduce structured learning threads and expert Q&A sessions.
Create official BJJ community forums with verified content.
Threats:
Unregulated user-generated content can lead to misinformation.
Engagement can be unpredictable and dependent on trending topics.
YouTube
Strengths:
Large collection of videos, both long and short form
Users can learn almost all the moves from videos
Weaknesses:
Not much organization; skill level in videos varies drastically
Too much information can be overwhelming
Opportunities:
Develop curated learning playlists for different skill levels.
Offer instructor-led live training sessions.
Threats:
Oversaturation of content can overwhelm new learners.
No community-building features beyond comments.
BJJFanatics
Strengths:
Large library of tutorials taught by professionals
Downloadable videos for offline viewing
Weaknesses:
Tutorials need to be purchased individually
Not very organized, mostly categorized by tags
Opportunities:
Introduce subscription-based model with structured learning paths.
Enhance search functionality for better organization.
Threats:
High cost of individual video purchases can deter users.
Lack of interactivity compared to live training or coaching.
Jiujitsu Five-O
Strengths:
Helpful for workouts, mobility, and health
Simple design that is well-organized
Weaknesses:
Some parts require an external application
Feels incomplete due to paywalls restricting access
Opportunities:
Expand beyond fitness to include comprehensive BJJ training.
Integrate with wearable devices for fitness tracking.
Threats:
Paywall limits user access to valuable content.
Lacks a dedicated technique learning section.
Design Phase
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Design Strategy Development
In the first step of the design process, I start with the design strategy development where I figure out what design principles I would like to include, based on the research insights.
Teaching in Real Situations: Techniques should be practiced with real training scenarios, not just in isolation, to improve understanding and application of the moves and techniques.
Keeping it Simple, Then Going Deeper: Layered difficulty for users. They will be introduced to more advanced techniques the further they are in their journey
All-in-One Experience: Combine learning, health tracking, and community in one application, so users don't have to switch between platforms.
Easy to Use While Training: Design the application with the idea of it being quick and simple enough to use during practice—so users cab stay focused and not get too distracted.
I also defined a couple key metrics for success:
Task completion efficiency for core user journeys.
Learning pathway clarity.
Feature discoverability.
User satisfaction with information architecture.
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Low Fidelity Wireframes
After deciding what to do and create after running a design strategy, I wanted to create low fidelity screens for each possible red route. Below I have included low fidelity wireframes for three important red routes—prepping for competition, increasing knowledge of moves, and making new friends.
Prepping for Competition
Prepping for Competition: Users have access to a competitive page where they have a more detailed application that caters more towards their needs. There is a page dedicated to signing up for upcoming tournaments. There are also pages for booking appointments with one-on-one calls with doctors and coaches.
Competitive Homepage
Prepping for Competition: Users have access to a competitive page where they have a more detailed application that caters more towards their needs. There is a page dedicated to signing up for upcoming tournaments. There are also pages for booking appointments with one-on-one calls with doctors and coaches.
Competitive Homepage
Prepping for Competition: Users have access to a competitive page where they have a more detailed application that caters more towards their needs. There is a page dedicated to signing up for upcoming tournaments. There are also pages for booking appointments with one-on-one calls with doctors and coaches.
Increasing Knowledge of Moves: Users have access to a plethora of aid for helping them learn and understand new moves. There is a moves list where users can find tutorials on all chokes and submissions. There is also a one-on-one coaching session where users can video chat with coaches to see how they can improve. There is also a fight analysis where users can watch analyzation and breakdowns of previous fights with the community.
Making New Friends: When creating the low fidelity wireframes for the community aspect, I wanted top create an application where users can just hop on and instantly communicate with peers or even make new friends. To do this we implemented a "Training Partner Locator" where users can find other peers to train with. There are also chatrooms and a reddit style community where users can communicate with each other.
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User Testing
After designing the low fidelity wireframes, I created a low fidelity prototype where I had users test and give feedback. I gave them several tasks to see how they would navigate throughout the application, as they navigated through the pages, I observed what they struggled with and how they organized and viewed the wireframes. I then came up with some issues I would need to fix and how critical the issue was. I then wrote a recommendation based on user feedback.
Priority
Issue
Recommendation
Critical
Back navigation does not work correctly
Creating a component for a back button where it will send users to the previous page.
Critical
Not enough indicators and instructions to help users navigate throughout the page.
Maybe some pop up messages to explain to the user what to do.
Major
Inconsistency between animations for buttons and pages.
Go back and look thoroughly through the buttons and pages and create a system of animations for both buttons and pages.
Major
Users struggle to navigate between sections.
Add a link to the names, so users can switch sections. Added a section in registration for users to select the sections.
Major
Variables do not reset, countdown timer, buttons, and menus do not reset after clicking them.
Go back and look through variables and select an option to reset them after the user has left the page.
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High Fidelity Wireframes
For a sport practiced on nearly every continent, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu surprisingly lacks a modern digital home. As a practitioner, I noticed that most information is scattered across platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram, making it difficult to find reliable, organized content. There’s no centralized hub where users can easily access training resources, manage their development, or stay connected with their teammates. Despite its global popularity, the sport often feels fragmented—divided into isolated cliques rather than united by a shared community. With Oss Mobile, I aim to create a central space where practitioners—whether hobbyists or competitors—can build friendships, take care of their physical well-being, and grow in their Jiu-Jitsu journey.
Final Solution & Takeaways
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Prototype
For a sport practiced on nearly every continent, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu surprisingly lacks a modern digital home. As a practitioner, I noticed that most information is scattered across platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram, making it difficult to find reliable, organized content. There’s no centralized hub where users can easily access training resources, manage their development, or stay connected with their teammates. Despite its global popularity, the sport often feels fragmented—divided into isolated cliques rather than united by a shared community. With Oss Mobile, I aim to create a central space where practitioners—whether hobbyists or competitors—can build friendships, take care of their physical well-being, and grow in their Jiu-Jitsu journey.
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Key Takeaways
For a sport practiced on nearly every continent, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu surprisingly lacks a modern digital home. As a practitioner, I noticed that most information is scattered across platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram, making it difficult to find reliable, organized content. There’s no centralized hub where users can easily access training resources, manage their development, or stay connected with their teammates. Despite its global popularity, the sport often feels fragmented—divided into isolated cliques rather than united by a shared community. With Oss Mobile, I aim to create a central space where practitioners—whether hobbyists or competitors—can build friendships, take care of their physical well-being, and grow in their Jiu-Jitsu journey.
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Future Opportunities
For a sport practiced on nearly every continent, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu surprisingly lacks a modern digital home. As a practitioner, I noticed that most information is scattered across platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram, making it difficult to find reliable, organized content. There’s no centralized hub where users can easily access training resources, manage their development, or stay connected with their teammates. Despite its global popularity, the sport often feels fragmented—divided into isolated cliques rather than united by a shared community. With Oss Mobile, I aim to create a central space where practitioners—whether hobbyists or competitors—can build friendships, take care of their physical well-being, and grow in their Jiu-Jitsu journey.
