League, an app to improve the softball team experience.
Every week, slow-pitch softball league coaches are inundated with several coordination tasks:
- make sure there are enough players for each game,
- send updates to players when things change,
- receive messages from players when their schedule changes sporadically,
- arrange team drinks for players during the game.
The list of tasks can seem endless. These tasks help the team run successfully, but coaches should not have to manually handle them using outdated methods. I propose we change the way softball players interact with coaches and each other by using League, a mobile app.
Anytime, anywhere from their phone, League allows players to see the schedule, RSVP for games, get reminders and updates about the games, send messages to teammates and coaches, set their drink preferences and availability, and keep track of how their team is doing.
League, a mobile app promotional video:
League, a mobile app prototype:
How it all Began
The prototype for League was created while I embarked upon the 10 week long Interaction Design Capstone Project, the eighth and final Interaction Design Specialization course by University of California, San Diego. I began my journey by selecting Softball as my area of focus, writing down a list of stakeholders and questions and deciding to use the Human Centered Design approach to product development. I wanted to identify the pain points that, if solved with a mobile app, could drastically improve the softball experience for both players and coaches.
Why I selected Softball as my activity
For the past 25 years, I have either played softball or sat in the stands and cheered on family and friends. I have watched my father, several of my teachers, some of my friends and even parents of my friends coach softball teams. A softball coach willingly takes on the responsibility of carrying out countless numbers of tasks. I realized, an app that would alleviate some of the softball coaches frustration when it comes to coordination would be universally beneficial.
Needfinding
I went to a softball complex to observe and interview players, coaches and spectators in order to better identify the needs and problems surrounding the softball experience. I followed a men’s slow-pitch softball team throughout their regular weekly routine. In a few short hours, I found more than thirty design breakdowns and opportunities.
Ideation & Synthesis
I then took what I observed and synthesized it into a prioritized list of the most insightful opportunities and goals. It was during this exercise that I realized recreational softball coordination has changed very little in the past 25 years and there are no true tech platforms on the market to help. Team App and Team Snap handle team and game coordination but are not currently positioned to handle team drinks. Meetup handles event coordination well but is not currently positioned to handle softball well. GroupMe handles group messaging and team communication but does not handle schedule visibility or RSVPing. Outlook handles RSVPing and schedule visibility but can’t handle player profiles and preferences. I decided my design solution would take all of the good features from these platforms and bring them together to streamline softball coordination and communication amongst coaches and players. All of the app ideas I chose to move forward with centered around the team but were propelled by the notion of alleviating as much of the stress as possible from the coach.
3 of the most insightful coach-related pain points I found were:
- At the beginning of every season, the coach hands out paper schedules or sometimes emails the schedule. During the season, players lose it, forget it or don’t have it on them and end up contacting the coach for schedule information. Players typically text message the coach when they have questions.
- Every week, the coach has to text message the players to track down who is/isn’t playing and has to recruit more players if necessary. He sends individual text messages to every player rather than a group message because he and the other players finds group messages distracting.
- Every game, the coach has to order the team drinks but many of the players have specific drink preferences. The coach cannot remember everyone’s desired drink so he has to ask each player what they want. Sometimes the coach is busy and a player will also share in this headache of a task.
After reading through my app ideas, I wrote the following Point of View Statement:
I want to create an app to improve the softball team experience. With better communication and visibility, teams should have more opportunities to participate in more softball games in their area.
Storyboards, Paper Prototypes & Digital Prototypes
Instead of diving straight into design and development of an app with a dozen different features, I used storyboards, paper prototypes and digital prototypes to weed out the good features from the bad. I had a spectrum of people run through the paper prototypes in person and online to catch as many usability issues as possible and to provide feedback and buy in to the app’s core features. Softball players, coaches, spectators, software developers and fellow Interaction Design colleagues all ran through the paper prototypes and found more than two dozen issues with usability and feature functionality.
An example of one of the features that was cut was a concession ordering feature. The coach liked the idea of having a drink list readily available to him as soon as everyone had RSVPed to remove the remembering/asking pain point, but thought ordering from the concession stands would create a number of additional hoops and pain points. By taking a few weeks and showing users proof of concepts via storyboards and prototypes, issues were identified early, bad features were discarded, and all computer digital prototyping time was instead allocated to only designing and developing the primary features that received buy in from my group of test users.
Interaction Modeling & Iterations
Getting feedback from users every few weeks allowed me to take an initial digital prototype through several iterations until it was finally deemed usable.
How that went:
- show initial design to users,
- get feedback on how to make the interactions better,
- spend time making changes,
- show it to users again,
- keep iterating until I had a good product with delightful interactions.
In-person User Testing
After a few weeks of developing and testing the digital prototype, I performed in-person user tests with a few players, a coach and a few spectators. Similar to the paper prototypes, the live user tests found half a dozen usability issues and feature functionality.
A/B Testing
When all found in-person usability issue were addressed and resolved, I was ready to A/B test. For the A/B test, I wanted to see if an RSVP accelerator on the home screen would speed up task completion time. I used UserTesting for one round of A/B tests and I used Lookback for a second round of A/B tests.
The A/B tests were inconclusive (neither version was statistically significant) but the feedback gathered about the app and it’s core functionality was positive. All of the A/B testers expressed joy, smiled and laughed upon reading the light hearted copy contained within the app’s RSVP interactions. They all agreed it was funny. 2/3 of the test users expressed that the app was easy to use, simple and clean and expressed overall pleasure with their app experience. A few of the test users and ALL of the testers I used for the need finding, paper prototyping and in-person testing said they want to start using the app.
After completing one last round of fine tuning, I now have a final digital prototype ready to go into the funding and app development stages.
Having reached the end of the capstone project, I have learned two lessons:
1. Collaboration is key. Every time you show a prototype to a person, they open up, realize you are trying to help, and begin running along with you in an effort to see the solution come to fruition. I found that almost everyone had a great add-on feature or change that would compliment the app or expand the app to solve another pain point in the softball experience. Collaborating removes a lot of guessing and personal bias. You make better decisions faster, cut fat more easily and end up with a better product.
2. Beer league Softball is in desperate need for new technology and products. People continue to play sports after they have reached adulthood because they not only want to receive the health benefits but also have a deep nostalgia for the sport. App developers need to start investing in apps for each specific league sport like volleyball, softball and bowling rather than generic solutions. By removing these outdated pain points in the sports, it would vastly improve the athletic experience.
In conclusion
As I finish the 8th and final course of the Interaction Design Specialization, I am ecstatic that I was able to apply my newly acquired knowledge toward a specific design problem. What I was unprepared for was the feeling of peripeteia I am now feeling. My prototype for League, while a big step forward, is still only a work in progress. With more time on the project, I would add some of the missing user generated features (e.g. Game Finder, Community, Game Stats) and perform additional A/B tests. I come to this moment and I wonder whether I should continue on and see League into funding and development, whether I should hand it off to someone or some company that can see it into funding and development or whether I simply catalog the project in my portfolio and I return to cheering in the stands. Only time will tell. :)
If you’d like to see the League prototype be developed, donate via https://www.gofundme.com/league-an-app-to-improve-softball
If you’d like updates on League’s status or are interesting in becoming a test user, “Like” League’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SoftballLeagueApp/
Follow me on Twitter for more IxD posts: https://twitter.com/@amilladesign
Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandres
A few sentences on UC San Diego’s IxD Specialization via Coursera
Trying to continue my UX education in the rural Midwest of the United States has been a challenge. It is even more of a challenge when you throw in work, a husband and two toddlers. I was elated when I learned that one of the top universities in my field, UC San Diego, offered an online Interaction Design Specialization on Coursera. For the past year, I have undertaken the eight courses that make up UC San Diego’s Interaction Design Specialization on the Coursera platform and it has been an amazing experience. All eight courses were rich in knowledge and provided a window into looking at design problems with a Human Centered approach. I want to thank Scott Klemmer, Elizabeth Gerber and Jacob O. Wobbrock for creating a wonderful group on courses. I completely recommend diving into this field of study.
