CLIENT

15SOF

MY ROLE

UX

OVERVIEW

Design exercise for 15SOF. Prompt was to identify usability issues and find ways to solve them.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Objective was to audit the app and choose a usability issue to solve.

CONSTRAINTS

For this exercise, only the event tab is going to be redesigned. Due to time constraints, the rest of the app’s design and architecture will remain the same.

Methods

Personas

Taskflows

User Surveys

User Testing

Research Methodology

User Testing

The first order of business was determining what area of the app to work on. I did my own quick audit, made a few hypotheses, and then got to work on facilitating live user testing sessions. After testing, it became clear that the two biggest pain points were checking into an event and the registering process for new users. In my own testing, I also found searching for an event to be cumbersome. I did not have any trouble with registering, as it was only for users that signed up via email (rather than social media).

After choosing to focus on the event tab, I aggregated the data found in user testing and what I have learned over the years as best practices. I mocked up the current task flow with pain points and possible solutions.

Research Methodology

Persona Development

What type of users are we working with? I interviewed family, friends, and coworkers to give me a basis for my personas. I asked questions like:

"When was the last time you went to a sporting event?"

"Who did you go with?"

"Tell me about how you ended up going."

"Do you follow any sports teams?" 

Personas

Social Sports Fan

“ I don’t have a team or sport. I attend sporting events with my friends for the social aspect of it, and sometimes I don’t even pay attention to the game.”

This is a social event attendee who is not tied down to any one team, usually they will just tag along with friends. They need a really intuitive interface that is easy to use without much training, since they aren’t likely to use the app very frequently. Easy check-ins are important to this fan, and they likely will check-in while at the game. They may not be familiar with the venues until they are on their way to the event.

Diehard Fan

“I am my team’s biggest fan! I follow them from city to city and attend every game that I can. When I can’t watch the game live, I’m streaming it and staying up to date on the score.”

This fan follows one team religiously. Distance and time are not a barrier for them, and they will follow their team from city to city. Being able to view their team’s schedule is important to the Diehard, so they can plan work and other life obligations around the games.

City Loyal

“I love my city, and I love sports. I follow multiple sports and will attend every home game without fail. Doesn’t matter if it’s college or professional, I’ll be there.”

A city loyal will regularly attend events in their city. Likely familiar and comfortable with all the local venues. For these fans, location is most important, as they are not likely to wander far from their hometown.

Usability Solutions

Based on our three personas and the current pain points, I proposed a new task flow. It included the following:

Nearby Events

Users are likely to check into the event while they are there. Adding a GIS pin that will find the user's current location will save them time.

Date Picker

The current date picker was hard to use because the days of the week were not labeled. This increased the user's cognitive load, as they had to remember what day their date landed on. 

The user was also required to tap on a small "x" in the corner to close the overlay. Once the user filtered by date, there was no indicator that it was filtered. Further, the user could not clear the date until they opened the overlay and clicked on that same "x" in the corner. 

The date picker was changed to an iOS slider. This is easier to tap on because the touch target is larger, uses common gestures, and is in the thumbs natural range of motion. A date label was also added underneath the search bar once filtered.

Search

Searching was troublesome because you could not search by multiple queries (for example, "NHL Kings" found all Kings teams, despite league). I added four categories to search by: league, team, city, and venue. I also added an elastic search, and a "Recent Searches".

Pin Picker

Filter by Category

Calendar Picker

Search Query