Coaching Up

Research

Research Challenge

I encountered a challenge in the beginning of my research which is finding a specific amount of people with insight about coaching. I needed to target coaches that use mobile apps to support their coaching career, question them about how they feel about “Basketball Blueprint”, and expand my research to any experience of coaching and users who play sports at any level.

User Persona

When I created my first persona, I realised that user persona was a highly experienced high school basketball coach. I decided to focus on Mitchell, he used to play in NJB (National Junior Basketball) and now he is currently coaching a NJB team.

What Mitchell needs is an accessible app for quick and effective coaching ideas, and he wants to level up his coaching experience.

Interview Results For "Basketball Blueprint"

The test results came back to me and I was not surprise. 100% of people said that the app looks outdated, they didn't understand what "Blueprint" meant in sports, like basketball. The logo doesn't make sense, icons are not eye-catching, it is hard to navigate, no one wanted to pay $28.99 to just unlock the clipboard, and there is very limited access for a free trial.

Definition & Ideation

Competitor Analysis

During my competitor analysis, I discovered that "CoachBase" is a redesign product of "Basketball Coach's Clipboard". Their product became a powerful tool and it was designed by coaches for coaches. The app features high quality drill videos, smart and easy to understand clipboard animations, intuitive design, automatic timer, and the app is worldwide. On the other hand, "Youtube" and other experienced coaches are my indirect competitors. During my research, I learned that majority of people turn to "Youtube" to learn and research plays or drills, and at the same time reach out to experienced coaches for advices.

Affinity Diagram

From my collected data from user interviews, I created two affinity diagrams to organize and generate ideas. I interviewed a total of four people that have coaching experience on different levels or interest in coaching. I discovered that none of them are using coaching apps or dislike to use them because of many reasons. For example, they never heard of the apps, upgrade plan is expensive not worth it, and hidden upgrade features.

From there I made I Like, I Wish, What If and learned that if users wanted to download and use the app, they would prefer that the app allows them to share their drills with other coaches. As a bonus, they will have a brand new interface and full access to trial base for a specific amount of time.

In the end, I made a priority matrix where I sorted the high impact and high priority, and low impact and low priority. I finalized the results in four very important and challenging solutions (shown below) to work on.

Logo Redesign

I changed the brand's name because the app was designed and meant to target only coaches. I wanted a universal name for the app because aside from "Basketball Blueprint", there are "Baseball Blueprint", "Soccer Blueprint", and "Football Blueprint". Hence, with the universal brand name, an expanded version of the app could work for all types of sports.

For the logo process, I started with a simple "C", played around with the colors, and then worked my way up to the font styles and arrows. I was inspired by the leveling up in video games and military ranking, therefore, I created the two "up arrows." Finally, the whistle represents coaches at any sports.

Testing & Iterations

Low-FI & Mid-FI

After countless a/b testing, user testing, and designing. I finally came up with the final version of low-fidelity wireframe. Next, the mid-fidelity version was where I input the colors and the layout for the app. Through repetitive design, a/b, and user testing, I finished my project with the Invision prototype.

Invision Link

Conclusion

Key takeaway & Future Direction

Expand App across different sports

Team managing & communication

Interactive clipboard for tablet use

Coach-to-coach communication via APP