SPORTS · 2016
Fox Sports
Re-imagine sports consumption and engagement on mobile platforms for sports fans.
Techniques
Persona Creation, User Flows, Wireframe, Prototyping & Usability Testing.
My Role
Lead UX Designer
Duration
4 months
Tools Used
Sketch, Invision, Principle, Keynotes
Devices
iOS & Android
Bringing Back the Excitement
In 2011, whether it's reading the latest sports news, checking last night's NRL scores, or watching sports highlights on the app felt magical. By the start of 2016, this magic receded to a slew of complex features that made the experience slow and difficult to use. I was part of an ambitious project to redesign the Fox Sports App sports consumption experience.
The Legacy
Since 2011, Fox Sports Australia has been on a mission to shift its sports content towards the digital space. For over 20,000 TV box subscribers this means having access to sports content on mobile, tablet, websites, and other digital interfaces.
The Fox Sports App, first designed in 2012 struggled to scale alongside the hyper-growth of the company. Fundamental usability was challenged as disparate features and contents competed for focus. App reliability and performance issues increased exponentially.
The Fox Sports app had become a representation of the company's org chart.
Discovery
Unpacking the Problems
Before jumping into solution mode, it was important to check under the hood for obvious issues. With abundant access to data and customer feedback, I’ve found 4 major issues that were recurring.
FOUR MAJOR PAIN POINTS WERE QUICKLY IDENTIFIED:
- Videos are poor in quality
- Matches that are not playing on time
- Ads were too disruptive during the match
- Onboarding & Content discoverability was poor
Defining the Scope
From a UX perspective, onboarding, content discoverability, and match timings have the highest user/business impact and the least implementation effort/time (as there’s little to no video production involvement).
Therefore, it was clear to the team that these problems should be addressed as part of MVP.
In order to have a shared understanding amongst product owners, designers and developers, I've reframed the above problem statements.
Problem 1:
"Customers could not easily discover contents of their favorite sports or teams."
Hypothesis 1:
"So if we provide users the ability to add their favorite sports or teams as they browse articles and videos, they can discover new curated content much easier. We will see an increase in engagement and customer satisfaction."
Problem 2:
"Customers are not able to watch live games on time."
Hypothesis 2:
"So if we provide users the ability to set reminders before a game starts or receive notifications when there’s a game delay. We will see a decrease in complaints."
Competitive Studies
In order to provide an effortless onboarding process that allows users to customize their experience, I turned to the market and started researching similar apps. Almost all sports app goes through a similar onboarding process e.g. first pick your favorite sports then pick your favorite teams. That said, not all sports apps provide users with the ability to control and personalized their teams as they browse the app or set notifications for matches they want to watch.
Personalization and content discovery was a key focus for both power and new users.
Who's our target audience?
Primary Persona
The audience for this initiative is focused on sports fanatics who are always on the go. Therefore, viewing sports content on mobile will be a major part of their daily consumption habit.
TWO SPECIFIC PERSONAS WERE DERIVED:
Sports Super Fan - Dedicated to a sport or a team
Sports Disruptor - Socially active across sports media — primarily mobile
Onboarding — a thing of the past
In an age where everything is demanding your time, I’ve designed the FoxSports app to give your time back by making personalization effortless, fast and contextual.
Therefore, I’ve made personalization an ongoing behaviour; where customers can favourite their sports or team to their library while browsing through articles, scores or watching a video.
By aligning with the user’s navigation behavior, personalization can be extended through browsing sports categories, teams, or players tagged on the content.
Fox Sports App Reborn
After 8 sprints, the new FoxSports digital app was born. It makes sensible decisions for users — informing in ways that are understandable and actionable.
The Impact
POSITIVE RESULTS
The test was done with 10 participants with specific tasks to test both hypotheses. Where the first 5 participants were shown the current design before the new design. Then the sequence was re-ordered for the next 5 participants to eliminate the default effect.
Findings:
Users found the setting up process simple to understand.
They thought the onboarding flow was what they expected. Using simple checkboxes to select multiple sports and teams is an easy way to personalize. The top nav horizontal design also helped to browse the contents efficiently.
Most of them love the idea of 'My Sports Collection' and the idea of adding teams as they browse. This allowed them to find content about their favorite teams easily.
Users found sub-categories in the drop-down menu and ‘+’ sign to add content very straightforward.
Adding content to the new design was much easier, all users had some trouble customizing their sports in the current app.
Most users liked to control what contents are added to their collection and are easily accessible.
"In the new design, looking from left to right works more naturally. Top nav is the layout in an obvious manner so everything is easy to find."
"Add sports and teams are very easy in the new design."
"In the current design, contents are in the menu and you have to look for stuff."
"Easier with the new design as there is new content with a 'plus button' that helps me identify adding new content. The current design, I can't differentiate which are my contents vs available contents to add."
Reflections...
Always ask yourself, are we solving the right problem?
Invalidated assumptions will always stay as assumptions.
Keep teams small.
Own the experience.