Discover Player
An application to connect local players and coaches and do trials with VR
Problem
The “DiscoverPlayer” app was designed to connect players with local teams and help players find nearby clubs for competitive leagues. The existing products lack up-to-date technology and user-friendly designs, leading to low user engagement. The challenge is to improve the application so that it successfully increases player trials based on club demand. The app aims to bridge the gap between players and clubs, enhancing the overall football experience.
Tools
- Miro
- Adobe
- Trello
Team
- 1 UX designer
My Role
- UX Design
- UX Research
Timeline
- Overall 12+ Weeks
Introduction and Background
Football, or soccer, is the most popular sport globally, celebrated for its accessibility and cultural significance. It transcends socioeconomic status and political affiliation, fostering community unity and promoting healthy lifestyles (Tinashe, 2020). Football has a rich history dating back over 2000 years and holds immense cultural importance worldwide, from Brazil’s record World Cup wins to England’s claim to modern football invention.
Football’s societal impact extends beyond the pitch, influencing social groups based on club support. Many amateur players, including those in Sunday leagues, face challenges finding suitable teams. This project aims to create a platform to simplify the process of connecting players and clubs.
Literature Review
Only 0.04% of the 265 million regular football players reach professional leagues, highlighting the competitive nature of football expertise development.
PlayerWanted.co.uk: A free service where coaches can post ads for new players, and players can find clubs for various sports. It was created by Adam Gillham to address the challenges of recruiting players and finding local clubs.
Find a Player: A platform aiming to connect players and clubs effortlessly. It emphasizes community, connection, and action, making it easy for users to start new activities, join clubs, or find training partners.
Technology Research
Virtual Reality (VR) technology is transforming football training, coaching, recruiting, and scouting. VR helps scouts find ideal player positions, provides detailed analyses, and identifies mechanical issues.
Method
Lean User Experience (Lean UX) is a team-based approach focused on iterative learning, user experience, and customer outcomes, rather than aiming for a theoretically perfect design. This methodology extends beyond merely implementing design elements; it involves envisioning how users will interact with a system, understanding a feature’s purpose, the necessary functionality, and the benefits it offers (Scaled Agile Framework, n.d.).
Lean UX emphasizes a closed-loop system for defining and measuring value, utilizing rapid feedback to determine if the system meets core business objectives. By concentrating on collaboration, experimentation, and quick feedback, Lean UX aims to create designs that are user-centered and business-oriented. These designs are validated through user testing and other feedback mechanisms.
THINK
To refine “Discover Player,” we conducted interviews with a new UK player and a coach seeking players. The player relies on Google to find local clubs but has yet to contact any, needing information on age, contacts, and club philosophy. He prefers competitive games but lacks experience. The coach uses WhatsApp and social media to find players, struggles to build his team, conducts trials, and needs player insurance and medical information.
Affinity mapping categorized this qualitative data, highlighting requirements, expectations, challenges, and goals for players and coaches. A clear problem statement for “Discover Player” was formulated. Proto-personas for players and coaches were created to establish a shared understanding of target users.
Business and user assumptions were established and prioritized using a Risk/Validation chart, focusing on impactful and easily validated assumptions. The Lean UX Canvas visualized product assumptions, emphasizing rapid prototyping and user feedback. Initial stages covered Business Problem, Business Outcomes, Users and Customers, User Benefits, and Solution Ideas.
Refined proto-personas incorporated research insights, providing clarity on target users. User journey maps for both personas detailed stages from awareness to selection, informing necessary application features. Competitor analysis of “PlayerWanted” and “Find a Player” identified strengths and weaknesses, guiding strategic planning and ensuring competitive advantage.
Persona
The “Good Neighbours” project uses a systematic approach to develop a Volunteer and Social Impact Platform. It employs affinity mapping and empathy mapping to understand user needs and emotions, guiding feature development. User personas and customer journey maps inform design decisions. Ideation techniques foster innovative solutions, evaluated by the NUF test. Competitive analysis provides industry insights. Prototyping refines the platform’s design, adhering to key design principles. The testing phase, including 5-Act Interviews and the System Usability Scale, ensures the platform’s effectiveness. The result is a user-friendly platform with a high usability score, ready to facilitate meaningful volunteer engagement and positive social impact.
Persona Learnings – Participant
- Likes to participate in events without sharing details
- Participant should get to know if there is any change in the schedule
- Need data protection
- Need verified organizer profiles in the website
Persona Learnings – Organizer
- Wants to promote organization activities, so that wider audience needed
- Wants to have a long term relationship with volunteers
- Wants to create a network and share events with volunteers
- Want separate channel for each activity
Assumptions
Lean UX relies on two main categories of assumptions: business and user assumptions. These set the stage for design and guide the development of prototypes and tests to confirm or refute them.
Business Assumptions
Business assumptions involve the market, corporate objectives, and value propositions. They serve as a roadmap for the design process, ensuring that outcomes align with broader business goals.
User Assumptions
User assumptions pertain to the wants, preferences, and motivations of the target audience. They help designers create products and services that meet consumer needs and expectations.
Both types of assumptions are crucial for Lean UX’s success. Rapid prototyping and user feedback help test and validate these assumptions, enabling designers to create successful products and services that meet market demands and user needs.
MAKE
During the Make phase, the project initiated with focused sessions on rapid idea generation, individually tailored for players and coaches, aimed at capturing a comprehensive range of potential features. These concepts underwent prioritization using the Moscow Technique, dividing them into “Must Have,” “Should Have,” and “Could Have” categories for each user segment. Hypothesis statements were meticulously crafted to guide the design process, emphasizing improvements in user acquisition, visibility, satisfaction, revenue generation, and engagement through functionalities such as social sharing, refined interface design, and virtual trial capabilities. Mental models were meticulously developed for coaches and players using rigorous card sorting techniques to delineate user interactions and navigation pathways within the application. Based on these models, wireframes were meticulously crafted to outline the application’s structural blueprint and layout effectively. Using Adobe XD, high-fidelity designs were meticulously developed to visualize the final product, enabling preemptive identification of potential enhancements before progressing to prototype development. The MVP prototype subsequently materialized, empowering coaches to seamlessly search for players, post trial advertisements, and engage with player profiles, while players accessed functionalities to discover local clubs, schedule trials, communicate with clubs, and showcase their skills through profile uploads.
CHECK
In the testing phase, four participants interacted with the prototype: two explored the player section, and two focused on the coach section without specific tasks. The goal was to validate hypothesis statements and gather feedback. Using the think-aloud method, participants provided real-time insights, followed by completing the System Usability Scale questionnaire to assess overall satisfaction. Results from this feedback are summarized in Figure 27: Feedback Testing Insights. Subsequently, participants’ responses to the SUS questionnaire were analyzed, yielding findings detailed in Figure 28: System Usability Scale. The validation of hypothesis statements, illustrated in Figure 29: Hypothesis Validation Chart, revealed an average validation rate of 87.14%, confirming the effectiveness of product features and assumptions.
Wireframes
Using Adobe XD, I translated my first sketches into low-fidelity wireframes. Wire flows were also done at this stage which later helped to do the Hi-fi prototype After completing wireframes I moved on to creating high-fidelity prototypes.
UI Design
The process of producing highly accurate, fully-functional, and detailed digital prototypes of the final product was done with the help of prototyping tool called Adobe XD. This helps to visualize the final product and can ensure the user experience before the developers starts to develop. This also helps to identify potential issues and can identify opportunities for improvement.
Discussion
The application has the potential to revolutionize local football communication and scheduling. Through VR trials and modern technology, users can showcase their skills, offering new opportunities for visibility. The app features user-friendly profiles, player/coach searches, and trial planning, simplifying talent discovery and recruitment. By automating these processes, it lowers entry barriers for players and enhances scouting efficiency for coaches. Overall, the program aims to foster innovative connections in local football, facilitating talent development and community growth.