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Pulled
A Trick-Based Gaming App
September 2023
Pulled started with a simple but bold idea take the excitement and community of extreme sports trick challenges in skateboarding, scootering, and BMX biking, and bring it to life as an interactive, user-driven mobile experience. It came from a group of passionate riders who wanted to create a global stage where people could share tricks, compete, and show off their creativity. The goal was to build something that stayed true to the raw, authentic spirit of street sports while making it even more engaging through playful game mechanics. I joined early in the concept stage, working closely with the founders, developers, and sport ambassadors to help turn that vision into a real product.
SERVICES
User Research & Personas, Wireframing & Prototyping, Visual Design, User Testing & Feedback
Project Overview
Create a digital space where riders can challenge, compete, and judge one another, combining social connection, competitive excitement, and creative expression.
Pulled brings street-style sports to your fingertips, letting users perform, record, judge, and share trick challenges in a gamified ecosystem. The app needed to blend the ease of video sharing with real-time scoring and leaderboard competition, all while staying true to the raw, underground culture of these sports.
A first-of-its-kind trick challenge app that lets users participate in contests, create their own, or judge others. The experience blends fun and functionality, bringing community and competition together in a sleek, high-energy interface.
Design Strategy & Process
The approach centered around user-first design, combining cultural research, iterative prototyping, and bold visual storytelling. By focusing on seamless gameplay, creative freedom, and community interaction, the goal was to craft an experience that felt both authentic and engaging to trick-sport enthusiasts.
A user-focused strategy that combined cultural research, agile design iterations, and visually bold aesthetics to craft an immersive mobile app. The goal was to authentically represent the action sports community while ensuring smooth gameplay, creative freedom, and high user engagement.
User-Centered Design Journey
Our mission was to create an authentic, easy-to-use, and culturally relevant platform that allows users to compete, judge, and share skateboarding, scootering, and biking tricks digitally. We adopted a deeply iterative, user-centered approach, constantly validating our decisions through feedback loops with real riders and sports communities.
Empathize We conducted extensive qualitative research: Interviewed 15+ riders, coaches, and sports enthusiasts. Observed local skate parks and freestyle competitions. Mapped emotional highs/lows during trick performance and judging. Define Synthesized research into key insights: Community wants quick, fair, unbiased judgments. Creators need a fast, mobile-first upload process. Visual identity must feel raw, energetic, and legit. Defined core problems: How might we digitize the authenticity of real-world trick judging? How might we reduce friction in challenge creation? Ideate Brainstormed multiple solutions: Different judging systems (points vs pass/fail). Upload flows inspired by Instagram Reels vs TikTok Duets. Gamification hooks (badges, streaks, leaderboards). Mapped key flows using Crazy 8’s and user journey mapping exercises. Prototype Built low-fidelity wireframes in Figma covering: Challenge Creation Flow Challenge Judging Flow Home Feed Discovery User Profiles Developed interactive prototypes simulating key tasks for usability testing. Test Conducted two major usability tests: Round 1 (Low-Fidelity Wireframes) → 12 participants Round 2 (High-Fidelity Prototypes) → 18 participants Captured both quantitative data (task completion time, success rates) and qualitative feedback (emotions, frustrations). Key findings: Users preferred binary pass/fail over point scores. Trick discovery needed a looping feed like TikTok to sustain engagement. Profiles needed clear Win Rate and Top Tricks stats. Refine Based on testing insights, we refined: Home feed interaction (continuous swipe instead of paginated content). Added “Judge Now” notifications to boost engagement. Simplified challenge upload to just 3 steps.
The design philosophy of Pulled was to create an immersive, high-energy experience that mirrors the spontaneity of extreme sports. By focusing on user creativity, competition, and community, the design aimed to capture the thrill of action sports while ensuring seamless, engaging interactions.
Final Design
The final product reflects a minimal yet bold visual identity rooted in skate culture, with black-and-white tones, grunge textures, bold typography, and kinetic UI elements. Key features include quick uploads, category tagging for skate, scooter, or bike, and time-limited trick submissions. A simple tap-to-pass or tap-to-fail system makes judging fast, while scalable feedback tools give judges more control. Leaderboards, challenge streaks, and achievement badges keep competition alive. Each user profile highlights trick stats, win/loss history, and favorite submissions, while the home feed works as a continuous content loop-swipe to discover new challenges and stay in the action.
We delivered an immersive mobile experience that mirrors the energy and creativity of the real-world sport
Product Images
Achievements
What impressed us most was the team's ability to translate the raw, energetic feel of skate and BMX culture into a smooth, intuitive digital experience. Pulled has been getting incredible feedback from riders and judges alike, and a huge part of that is thanks to the UX design approach.
Head of Operations, Pulled
Pulled quickly captured attention with an energetic and authentic user experience. Within the first three months, the app crossed 10,000 downloads and achieved a 4.8-star rating on the App Store. It witnessed an 8x growth in daily challenge activity compared to beta testing, showing strong user engagement. Pulled also succeeded in building a vibrant, loyal community of riders and influencers, setting a new standard for digital trick challenge platforms.
Through a user-centered design approach, Pulled not only achieved its business objectives but also earned deep emotional resonance with its target community. The app's intuitive workflows, culturally accurate design, and seamless judging system were praised by both users and stakeholders. Additionally, the creation of a scalable, modular design system ensured Pulled is ready to evolve with future trends in extreme sports and mobile gaming.
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