Fantasy Space
Fantasy Space is a fun, inclusionary fantasy sports app, which affords both new and existing players all the tools they need to be successful within their leagues.
Problem & Vision
Fantasy sports are a rapidly growing hobby among the North American public, within the mobile application marketplace. Year over year, the hobby is introduced to new fans via their sport of choice. The mobile marketplace has been the primary method of fantasy league presentation. Legacy apps like Yahoo Sports, NFL Fantasy, and Sleeper exist to host the aforementioned leagues and perform the majority of the statistical calculations for scoring decisions within competitive leagues.
Unfortunately, several issues exist within the current paradigm of these legacy apps which tend to alienate users from their foray into fantasy sports.
The primary issue is the exclusionary way in which these apps thrust users into the data-heavy information environments without providing a clear explanation on the intricacies of fantasy sports.
Thus, my goal for Fantasy Space was to cultivate an environment that helped newcomers , in order to facilitate the growing popularity of the hobby.
User Interviews & Feedback
The first step in gathering user data was to crowd-source users online. I created a screener and a survey, then distributed it to fantasy football fans via different mediums.
I posted the survey onto Reddit, as well as a few different fantasy football servers. While I was pleased with most of the data collected, I found it to be slightly slanted towards intermediate and expert level users.
In order to find true fantasy football novices I needed to go elsewhere to a place where nobody plays it or they are ultra-casual about the details of their forays into past leagues. I had to go to my wife’s friend group and crowd-source answers via independent surveys. I also pursued family members who I knew were novices at fantasy sports, to further understand their pain points and affinities.
Over time I was able to put together personas based on the data collected from a variance of users. These personas are reflected in the following section.
User Personas
The challenge associated with designing a fantasy sports app comes in the form of including a variance of skill levels in UX design considerations. The different personas include the following:
Expert - Users with an abundant amount of experience within the hobby. They require very little assistance to things started and will typically be ideal candidates for power users.
Intermediate - These users have been through a season or two. They have learned the game through success and mistakes. Now they are searching for the edge that puts them over the competition.
Novice -”Rookies” to the hobby. These users require a bit more hand-holding and will learn the game with time, as long as they are not alienated early on.
Care must be taken not to over-compensate in accommodating one user base in favor of another. The way to do so is to provide tips and assistance when needed, devoid of intrusive behavior.
Information Architecture & Functionality
The aim of this project is to provide a fun and inclusive information environment for users to compete against each other in fantasy sports. The initial step in designing the user experience was gathering as much relevant user data as possible and synthesizing it into user personas.
Once the primary personas (novice, intermediate, and expert) had been established, it was time to craft the principle user flows to accommodate each of their desired functionalities. The image above is indicative of this step. Understanding how the user would interact with the product assisted me in crafting these outlines.
From here, I transitioned these flows into wireframes, which can be seen in the image beneath this text block. The wireframes outlined all of the necessary screens associated with the user flows for the initial release. As you can see, I detailed particular elements of interaction on this page with points for the stakeholders/engineering team for future implementation. After creating these I harnessed the feedback attributed by my fellow design team and modified the wireframes into an interactive prototype.
Wireframes & Testing
The low-fi prototype portrayed most of the anticipated actions that users came to expect. Primary functionality tested was conducted under low-fi conditions in order to hone in on the interaction points, without losing users to the aesthetics.
Preliminary results were largely positive among a mix of different users. Newer users found elements like tooltips and overviews helpful in providing explanations they were unfamiliar with, while seasoned fantasy veterans seemed to breeze right past these elements, because they understood the core components of fantasy and needed little hand-holding.
UI & Mockups
Having converted the prototype into a hi-fidelity mockups now grants the opportunity to further design for content and user interactions with new different audiences. During the outset of this project I used a technique on this product commonly known as iterative design within agile spaces. What this means is that I broke the release of features up into scalable future iterations, rather than attempting to stuff every ounce of dreamed functionality into the initial release.
Designing experiences in this way is generally assisted with a project roadmap to accompany each “user story” with a planned design integration and release. The current prototype is conducive towards a quick user-testing/engineering/QA turnaround, while the final iteration of this product will encompass more features and functionality. This reinforces the fluidity of UX design and how a product is essentially a living entity, built on maintaining positive experiences throughout it’s lifespan.
Initial Release Plan
I plan on developing the app in an iterative format, as it speaks to the nature of agile design. Additionally, I don’t have the pocket cash to hire a developer to do everything at once. Therefore it makes more sense economically to iteratively release products over time.
The first release will encompass a football-only fantasy experience. Scoring will be established in PPR formats and leagues may be joined by invitation only. My plan is to complete development by next fall and launch the app in beta as a standalone fantasy football resource.
With time and iterative releases I will continue to roll out features and update external APIs for player news, etc. More sports and competitive modes will also come with time.
I invite everyone to stay tuned in as we work towards our release goal next fall.
Lessons Learned
Throughout the initial mapping and design phases of this project I learned that sometimes the product you set out to create evolves into something uniquely different.
The “expert” users that I initially set out to placate did not necessarily take to the illustrations and emotional aspects of the design. These users found the UX to be almost “too cute”, as expert players were unamused with the artwork. However, novice and intermediate users gravitated heavily towards the illustrations and really enjoyed the learning atmosphere of the in-app experience.
However, when I tailored the UI towards a more utilitarian-approach, without illustrations, novice users found the experience predominantly bland. It took time to find a balance between different UI styles to establish the best feedback across different user groups.
If you are interested in checking out the interactive prototype then I encourage you to please do so. You can try it here! Feel free to hit me up with feedback as well :)