GameChanger

Enhancing the basketball scorekeeping experience for youth sports teams by streamlining substitutions in the GameChanger mobile app.

My role

UX Research & UX/UI Design

Platform

iOS & Android

Tools

Sketch & InVision

Timeline

March - April 2020

BACKGROUND

The Challenge

GameChanger provides youth sports teams with scorekeeping, live game action, stat tracking, team management, and messaging tools.

We discovered through generative research that users of our basketball scorekeeping product were not setting a starting lineup or accurately subbing players in and out of the game as they were scoring.

Additionally we hypothesized that fans watching the live animated gamestream scored by our scorekeepers find huge value in seeing whether their player is on the court at any given time, thus making it vital that our scorekeepers be easily able to keep an accurate lineup.

The Team

I worked as a user researcher & UX/UI designer on a cross functional team comprised of 2 designers, a product manager, 2 QA associates, and 7 engineers.

Our Users

For basketball scorekeeping the users are youth coaches, managers, or parents who keep track of stats midgame. GameChanger works to replace these users’ paper scorebooks.

Key Question

How can we ensure that our basketball scorekeepers are setting a starting lineup and keeping substitutions accurately throughout a game?

Before Redesign

RESEARCH

Methods

We wanted to learn everything we could about how other scorekeeping apps handled subs, as well as how our scorekeepers were using subs, what value they found in keeping an accurate lineup, what pain points they had, and what the subs flow would look like to them if they could wave a magic wand.

In doing so, we researched sub & playing time rules, analyzed youth games to see typical subbing behavior, conducted a competitive audit, analyzed results from a survey we sent to users, interviewed GameChanger employees with in-depth basketball knowledge, scored a Knicks game live, and conducted 4 user interviews with GameChanger basketball scorekeeping users.

Members of the cross functional team and designers across all GameChanger teams came to the user interviews we conducted. This is especially important for accurate note taking, analyzing feedback, and getting buy-in for designs down the road.

User interview protocol

Below are the summarized findings from the interviews that pertained to subbing players midgame:

Takeaways

After analyzing all the research and distilling it, there were 3 main takeaways:

Users don’t know they can set starters or sub players
Users don’t remember to sub players and often assign plays to a bench player without subbing another player out
Users de-prioritize tracking subs behind tracking other stats, as their lineup isn't a very useful midgame stat & it's less effort cognitively and physically to leave 6+ players on the court

For a more in depth analysis, see below:

User interviews takeaways

DESIGN

Goals

Before design began, we created three design goals to center the sketches around. Ultimately, the enhancements to the sub flow had to be accomplishing these things:

During design, we made sure that we were also solving for the desired emotional and cognitive user responses through a user’s substitution journey, specifically focusing on a user’s reactions before, during, and after they are alerted of a potentially incorrect lineup:

Iterations

We sketched out many potential solutions, ranging from safe & technically simple to out-of-the-box & complex. Amongst the many, here are several:

The Solution

After consulting and iterating with our cross-functional team several times, we wireframed and prototyped the following solution.

Pregame starters:

The ability to set a pregame lineup familiarizes users with the subs functionality as well as with the subs UI, so that they'll know they can set their lineup once they're scorekeeping. In this way, when users go to the Subs tab midgame it should be a familiar and comfortable experience for them. Additionally, it allows users to jump immediately into scoring a game once it begins without having to go to the Subs tab and put players on the court first.

Midgame enhancements:

The name My Team was not discoverable enough for users, and changing the name to Subs lets users know the function they'll perform within the tab. The notification badge on the tab serves to alert users, without distracting or impeding them, that something requires their attention within the Subs tab.

Within the Subs tab, the toasts tells users exactly why they were notified with the badge, empowering them with the knowledge and ability to quickly fix their lineup. Finally, the count of players on the court reduces users' cognitive load as they're adjusting their lineup.

TEST, DEV, QA, SHIP

Next Steps

Unfortunately due to coronavirus, we have not yet gotten a chance to prototype test the designs and engineer the solution, and the enhancements are on hold for the time being.

But whenever possible, with the designs prototyped and iterated on with the cross-functional team, the next steps will be to set up prototype tests with current and new users to test the enhanced substitution functionality.

Afterwards, we’ll assist in the development and QA of the feature as well as the go-to-market launch. We’ll continue to monitor and request feedback from users to test the new functionality as it's used in real-life scenarios, as this will provide the most accurate and influential feedback. From there, it's iteration time - there’s always room to improve.

substitutions

GameChanger

Enhancing the basketball scorekeeping experience for youth sports teams by streamlining substitutions in the GameChanger mobile app.

UX Research & UX/UI Design

iOS & Android

Sketch & InVision

March - April 2020

The Challenge

GameChanger provides youth sports teams with scorekeeping, live game action, stat tracking, team management, and messaging tools.

We discovered through generative research that users of our basketball scorekeeping product were not setting a starting lineup or accurately subbing players in and out of the game as they were scoring.

Additionally we hypothesized that fans watching the live animated gamestream scored by our scorekeepers find huge value in seeing whether their player is on the court at any given time, thus making it vital that our scorekeepers be easily able to keep an accurate lineup.

The Team

I worked as a user researcher & UX/UI designer on a cross functional team comprised of 2 designers, a product manager, 2 QA associates, and 7 engineers.

Our Users

For basketball scorekeeping the users are youth coaches, managers, or parents who keep track of stats midgame. GameChanger works to replace these users’ paper scorebooks.

Key Question

How can we ensure that our basketball scorekeepers are setting a starting lineup and keeping substitutions accurately throughout a game?

Before Redesign

Methods

We wanted to learn everything we could about how other scorekeeping apps handled subs, as well as how our scorekeepers were using subs, what value they found in keeping an accurate lineup, what pain points they had, and what the subs flow would look like to them if they could wave a magic wand.

Members of the cross functional team and designers across all GameChanger teams came to the user interviews we conducted. This is especially important for accurate note taking, analyzing feedback, and getting buy-in for designs down the road.

Below are the summarized findings from the interviews that pertained to subbing players midgame:

Takeaways

After analyzing all the research and distilling it, there were 3 main takeaways:

Users don’t know they can set starters or sub players

Users don’t remember to sub players and often assign plays to a bench player without subbing another player out

Users de-prioritize tracking subs behind tracking other stats, as their lineup isn't a very useful midgame stat & it's less effort cognitively and physically to leave 6+ players on the court

For a more in depth analysis, see below:

Goals

Before design began, we created three design goals to center the sketches around. Ultimately, the enhancements to the sub flow had to be accomplishing these things:

During design, we made sure that we were also solving for the desired emotional and cognitive user responses through a user’s substitution journey, specifically focusing on a user’s reactions before, during, and after they are alerted of a potentially incorrect lineup:

Iterations

We sketched out many potential solutions, ranging from safe & technically simple to out-of-the-box & complex. Amongst the many, here are several:

The Solution

After consulting and iterating with our cross-functional team several times, we wireframed and prototyped the following solution.

Pregame starters:

Midgame enhancements:

Within the Subs tab, the toasts tells users exactly why they were notified with the badge, empowering them with the knowledge and ability to quickly fix their lineup. Finally, the count of players on the court reduces users' cognitive load as they're adjusting their lineup.

Next Steps

Unfortunately due to coronavirus, we have not yet gotten a chance to prototype test the designs and engineer the solution, and the enhancements are on hold for the time being.

But whenever possible, with the designs prototyped and iterated on with the cross-functional team, the next steps will be to set up prototype tests with current and new users to test the enhanced substitution functionality.