Sports Roulette- Mobile Interface for Sports Wagering
Challenge: A mobile experience to increase fan engagement watching online sports.
The Project: Fantasy Sport Game
Users: Fans range from 18 to 75 years old and represent all demographics who can use smartphones
My Role: UI-UX Designer, UX Researcher, Information architect
Team: Niranjan Kshirsagar, Lawrence Walter, Avinash Mishra
My Responsibilities
Defining product strategy and business objectives
Understanding and designing the Product
Evaluating and validating the product before deployment
Interactive Mobile Interface
Key features:
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User can place the bet during the live game
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Ability to redeem sponsors points immediately
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A simple reward system
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Ability to earn money without being considered gambling
Exploring Problem Space
I identified that fans are an essential component of the sports industry and proposed this project to conduct research to understand better Fan Experience in sports and then designed an innovative prototype solution.
The Challenges for me:
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Know your target: To design effective engagement application, our team must be clear and specific regarding the target audience or end-users
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Make it personal: Programs designed to speak to everyone run the risk of speaking to no one
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Think holistically about the experience: The live game experience is a focal point for fan interaction and franchisees alike
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Engage year-round: Meaningful relationships don’t start and stop with the sports season
Defining Business Objectives:
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Make their fans happy, connected, and supported
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A great way to get families and groups together, increase their social interactions
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Make fans part of Sports Roulette ecosystem
The Process
I believe design is an iterative process. Here I approached the final solution by iteratively performing group discussions and brainstorming sessions in collaboration with my other team members. After having a low and high fidelity version, I performed a series of pilot and usability testing using standard testing practices.
Competitive Analysis
Fanduel
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Incentive-based utilizing a ‘gambling’ like system without oversight from the State.
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Partnerships with the NBA, NFL, and MLB
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The research-based selection process of players on a team, not a game of ‘luck’
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Simple to enter the sport, with clear roster setup
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Lock-in roster allows for one to see the ownership percentage of players immediately
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Ability to view other opponents lineups before beginning gameplay
Cons
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Have become so large they are dealing with PR issues
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Many politicians are against the App because leading to unhealthy habits
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Considered gambling in many communities and facing the problem of underage gambling
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Unable to withdraw bonus money immediately
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What can be done to empower more phone usage for in-game settings?
Draft Kings
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Ability to earn money without being considered gambling
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Incentive-based with high earning prizes
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416 million in investment funding
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Allows for the ability to double first deposit up to $600
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Offers eSports, MMA, PGA, and NASCAR
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NFL
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The higher salary cap for weeklong leagues at 10k more than FanDuel
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Can play a Flex Player
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Player pricing based on an algorithm of a matchup, weather, location, past performance, value compared to other players, player popularity
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VIP program; those with high gameplay volume gain unique
Cons
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Complex rewards system
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Can be difficult to win against expert players
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PR Issues
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Underage accessibility
Field Research
Direct Observation:
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In-game observation - Stadium
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Interaction with fans
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Understanding of game through screens
Informal Interview:
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The passive observation was followed up by an informal interview with the user to understand their experience throughout the game
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Questions were derived from notes taken during game and general experience
Reason fans were engaged:
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Key Events in the game trigger crowd engagement (especially when their team is winning, etc)
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When they are able to participate in trivia games in between games or during a time-out
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Intense moments such as when the game score is constantly changing and making it hard to predict which team will win
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When they can share the game experience on social media (Ex: Sharing game highlight
Reason fans were not engaged:
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They get distracted by their phone (incoming text, games, taking selfies, etc)
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Engaging with other sport while they are at the game (fantasy sports games, etc)
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Their seat is too far from the court and also the screen (depending on where they sat in the stadium, fans experience can vary)
Insights of Field Research
After applying qualitative and quantitative research methods followed by a series of group discussions and brainstorming sessions. I summarized my research as:
Literature Review
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Few Examples
Personas
I'm a huge sports fan so I enjoy watching sports games with my family. But my wife and daughter are always distracted by their phone. I want them to enjoy and engage in the game.
I'm not a sports fan but I'm here to just give company to my project partners. My main aim is to just relax so that I can get back to my assignments with a fresh mind.
Goals:
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Understand the game more and how it played
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Start with a fresh mind so that he can perform well in projects and finals
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Discover about players and team
Frustrations:
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A system that allows college students to participate
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The game moves really fast and it’s hard to keep up
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The terms his friends are using, he is not aware of that
In-stadium game experience with friends
Goals:
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Be the part of Sports ecosystem by playing with them simultaneously
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A product with a simple reward system
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Wants to enjoy the game with family without any distraction
Frustrations:
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Complex product not allowing to win
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The food at the stadium is expensive
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His wife and daughter are always on the phone and not paying attention to the game
In-stadium game experience with family
Based on the research so far I created two personas representing the needs and frustrations of the real users.
Design concept one: Augmented Reality
Key Elements
Gamification using AR to compete as teams at the stadium during the breaks
Geolocation beacons to push contextual content to the user
AR replay/highlights where the user can pause the replay and manipulate the content in 3D
AR in-stadium navigation
This solution addresses multiple user needs and satisfies goals defined during research. The augmented reality game is aimed at controlling the use of mobile phones by gamifying the break duration using an AR game to compete with opposite team fans in the stadium. This promotes user engagement during downtimes while building brand loyalty through rewards from sponsors. This benefits both the user and the sponsor.
Design Concept Two: Overall Stadium Visiting Experience
This design concept/sketches illustrate the overall experience of the sport user/fan. The main purpose of the concept is to enhance the overall experience.
Design Concept Three: Live Action Fan Engagement
The purpose of this design concept is to keep sport spectators engaged during the live basketball game.
Key Elements
Provide an engaging interface to review historical basketball shot data
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Connects fans with players and teams
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Time bar feature allows a dynamic view of shot patterns over time
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Improves Fans ability to predict where the next shot will come from
Shot prediction interface allows Fans a fast way to make a prediction
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This enhances fan engagement throughout the entire game
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Even casual fans are able to make a simple guess
Selecting the number of points to stake on your selection improves fan excitement levels
The calculation of how close your guess is with the actual shot to generate Prize Points will enhance the excitement
Further incentives to risk points each round are generated through an elimination cutoff system. The lowest scoring players are eliminated from the competition
The use of a Fan Cam ensures losing players can still follow along and stay engaged with the system and sponsors have an opportunity to expose their brands in novel and fun ways.
Ideation Selection Process
During the design ideation phase of this project, new ideas were continuously generated, explored by the team, and iterated upon. Naturally, there were many features that morphed into new concepts or merged with existing concepts.
The Live-Action Fan Design (Design Concept 3) was selected because it offered the most flexibility to integrate the best design elements from the other concept
Concept Design
Value Proposition Diagram
Task Flow
Low Fidelity version
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User Testing of Low Fidelity Prototype
We conduct User Testing with a total of 09 users
Active sports fan
Passive sports fan
04
05
Key insights were:
Ability to select the location on the court directly from the heatmap screen
Need to show the rewards to motivate the users to play and wager
The navigation within the filter page needs to be intuitive
High Fidelity Prototype
After fixing the issues suggested by our users during pilot testing helped me develop the high-fidelity prototype. The concept of our high-fidelity prototype was inspired by the idea of roulette.
User Testing and Results
Task One: Sign Into Application
“Assume that you have just downloaded the application and want to start using it. You could create a new account but please
Sign in was conducted with high erasability and did not have troubles. Concerns that were drawn from this task seemed to focus on the ability to work through the screen to type in individual names when they were reminded to use the provided username and password.
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Future direction may need to focus on the ability to type in individual user names, and then move to the hotspot for an easier testing experience.
TAsk Two: Experience the homepage and select basketball game to play roulette
“Congratulations you have reached the main home screen of the Sports Roulette application. This is where you can check your account profile, read the latest news, and select a game to play. Please take some time to explore what is available on the screen” (Provide enough time to users to explore the application)
“Now select the Warriors vs Pacers game and proceed to play the Sports Roulette mobile game”
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The latest news was not directed to the user’s preference, which allows for the future design to provide a preference option in the user profile before reaching the home screen.
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Through the guidance of the user tasks, the user was able to complete the task in the given time, with a positive response demonstrating the ease of use to reach the basketball game followed by the sponsor's page.
Test Three: Engage in Basket Game and use the prototype to place a bet
Step 1: “The game is already underway so please review all the sponsors available and use the prototype to select Adidas as the company that will provide clothing as prize options if you become eligible for prizes.”
Step 2: “Although the game has already started there is currently a time out on the court. Review the players then select player #2 from the Pacers, and select player #23 from the Warriors to place a wager on.
Step 3: “Choose player #2 from the Pacers, and player #23 from the Warriors and observe changes as you click through players available.”
Step 4: “There are the 30s left in the timeout so now select 600 of the Adidas tokens and lock in your bet for each player places them on the court where you think those players will shoot from next.”
The user tends to swipe through the players rather than using the arrow provided to reach the next player for selection. This can be improved through redesign of a swipe through function or potentially the use of voice integration (for the user’s that know the player they want to play immediately.
Test four: Collect your prize and share your results on social media
“The game resumes and you watch with your friends as the predictions you made are accurate. Collect your winnings from the game that just finished, and please share your results with friends on social media.”
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The user wanted to know which prizes would be available, which was not presented in the prototype due to the inability to connect with the sponsor.
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The user enjoys the fact that they have the ability to rejoin the game and continue playing, to gather up more points for future prize collection.
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The user had expressed that they would like to see the value of points collected on the collection prize screen, to determine if it was worthy to cash in.
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All users enjoyed the ability to share their results on social, as social media was one aspect that they did not know was existent.
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This demonstrates the need to show social earlier in the prototype.
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Comments
What user’s liked:
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Ability to “guess” where the next shot may come from
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Potential ability to play in real-time
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Learning about players by playing the game
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Viewing their news feed in the home page
What user’s felt needed improvement:
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Data visualization of shot history
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Understanding the different shot zones
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More player history and background data on the team’s current status
Changes proposed for the next design iteration include:
● Integrate point history into the user profile screen.
● Develop a user-friendly chip-placement that considers accessibility issues.
● Improve the visibility of the shot clock and time left to place a bet.
Poster
Learnings:
Keep listening:
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As obvious as this sounds, by continually listening to what our users were saying throughout the entire project, the team was able to identify solutions that made sense for a range of workflows. By embracing research from the start, we were able to accommodate a wide variety of users' needs.
Prototyping is worth it:
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Communicating via prototype was the easiest way to get our ideas across and make decisions. The prototypes helped us get buy-in from all stakeholders, including our teammates and our users. And because we were able to get aligned quickly, everyone felt empowered to contribute more toward the overall design.
Make calculated trade-offs:
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We made calculated design trade-offs to ensure we launched with a high-quality product and also followed up on other issues by shifting our product roadmap for the subsequent weeks.
āyuda
