Georgia Soccer
Sports Organization Website
The Client
Georgia Soccer is the authorized state youth and adult soccer association for Georgia within the United States Adult Soccer Association, United States Youth Soccer Association, and through them is part of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF).
My Role
As part of the consulting UI/UX design team, I performed user research, competitor analysis, research synthesis, information architecture design, and wireframing.
Type
Non-profit Sports Organization Website
Duration
5 Weeks
Tools
Miro, Invision Freehand, Figma, Google Analytics
Team
3 UI/UX Designers
1 UX Designer
Role
User Research, Competitor Analysis/Heuristic Evaluation, Information Architecture, Research Synthesis, Sketching, and Wireframing
The Brief
Georgia Soccer has a wide range in audience and content that different users need to access and they requested our support in streamlining the experience so users can access the critical areas with intuitive ease. A few of the most pressing areas identified are related to:
Individual and tournament registration
Academy/certifications offered
Parents completing task after a player is registered
Events
Audience
Coaches
Register team for tournament
How to become a coach
Referees
Register to get assigned to tournament
How to become a referee
Parents
Register children for soccer
Business Goal
For users to register in some way and get involved with org.
Monetization
Tournament registration
Coach certification course
Referee certification course
Provide Information
Education
Membership info
Risk Management
Policies/Procedures
Documentation
The Problem
Our primary goal was to further explore the problems that Georgia Soccer has reported to us, hone in on the specific user pain points, and propose design solutions to solve for the identified pain points.
Due to the nature of the project and time constraints, our scope and final deliverable was limited to recommendations for improving to their website.
Initial Pain Points
Several clicks in order to find info
Info looks like it was just dumped on the site
Too much text (needs more graphics/illustrations/videos)
External website links
Users unaware that the next page is not part of GA Soccer
Lack of Support
Contact Us page only provides form
Too much information required for Contact Us form
Just capture email
No phone number
The Goal
Explore the UX issues of the Georgia Soccer homepage
Create solutions to improve and streamline the user experience
UX-focused approach, not UI-focused
Deliverable: Low-fidelity wireframes and improvement recommendations
Process and Methods
01. Research
Competitor Analysis
(Heuristic Evaluation)
User Surveys
User Interviews
02. Insight
Affinity Map
Persona
User Journey
03. Ideate & Design
Info Architecture
(Navigation Redesign)
Wireframing
04. Final Proposal
New Design
Opportunities
05. Next Steps
Further Research
Testing &
Validation
Project Outcome
01.
Research
Competitor Analysis
(Heuristic Evaluation)
To gain a foundational knowledge of a local non-profit sports organization, we first performed heuristic evaluations of 4 similar sports organizations to understand how they solved problems to achieve similar business goals. Because the primary issue reported by Georgia Soccer was their navigation menu and information layout, we focused our evaluation takeaways on those aspects.
Key Takeaways
New Mexico Youth Soccer spells out abbreviations for new parents such as ODP, this keeps new user frustration down.
US Soccer Foundation shows an excellent example of style consistency and minimalism.
USA Hockey and others have menus split by user groups, this makes navigation fast and intuitive.
WYSA site shows a good example of too many font styles, hard for users to absorb information.
User Research
User Survey
For primary research, we conducted an online user survey to get direct feedback from the Georgia Soccer user base and to recruit interviewees for user interviews. We were able to collect 119 responses at the end of two weeks.
We surveyed users about their:
Involvement with Georgia Soccer (Role, number of years, etc.)
Experience using GA Soccer website
Likes about the website
Dislikes about the website
Info sought during website visit
User Interviews
From the survey, we were able to recruit and schedule 3 interview participants within our compressed 2-week timeline. The three participants’ roles in the organization were all coincidentally parents of players.
3 Participants
2 Men, 1 Woman
30 Minute
Remote Virtual Interviews
Role
Parents of players
Interview Questions
What do they use the website for?
How do they use the website?
What problems do they encounter?
Show us and walk us through how they accomplish their goals via the website
Interview 1
Interview 2
Interview 3
02.
Insights
Affinity Map
To synthesize the 119 responses from the survey, I created an affinity map of all of the responses to the open-ended questions: what they liked about the website, what they disliked about the website, and the information they were looking for on the website. The affinity map pointed us towards the issues that were most important for users and what were to be highest priority user stories for our design.
Likes
Information
Navigation
(easy to navigate)Design
Dislikes
Navigation
(difficult to navigate)Lack of information
Not intuitive/user friendly
Login/Account management
Info Sought
Schedule
Referee info
Logistics
(Team rankings, scores, rosters, rules, location, and registration)Programs
(ODP, Youth, etc)Tournament info
League/Club info
Personas
With the insights and feedback from the user survey and 3 user interviews, we created a persona for the parent user to focus our ideation process later.
Journey Map
For our last step of interview synthesis, we journey mapped how a user currently interacts with the website to achieve their goals based on the parent persona we created. The user journey map helped us keep in mind what the parent may be feeling at certain points in their interaction with the Georgia Soccer website and where there are opportunities for improvement.
Redefining the Problem
Third-Party Tool was Root Cause of Friction,
Not Homepage
Through the user interviews, we gained a significant insight into the user’s pain points: a majority of the login and usability issues were associated with a third-party site (Sports Connect) that users were led to in order to access their schedules and manage their individual accounts. Most complaints of usability and logins were not directly tied to the GeorgiaSoccer.org website. The client was unaware that users did not differentiate between the homepage and the third-party tool, and that the pain points lied within Sports Connect rather than GeorgiaSoccer.org.
Website Used as Pass-Through Only
(For Parents)
Parents used the GeorgiaSoccer.org website as a hub and pass-through tool to get to the Sports Connect website in order to complete their actions and achieve their goals. One participant had the Sports Connect website bookmarked and bypassed GeorgiaSoccer.org completely in her usual usage pattern. She did not consider Sports Connect separate from GeorgiaSoccer.org, and assumed it was all one website.
Discovered a New Subset of Users:
Parent Team Managers
Because we interviewed 3 parents of players, we also discovered that the usability issues parents reported were partially due to their roles as team managers. While not all parents are team managers, two out of the three parents we interviewed were team managers, and therefore used the third-party website in different ways than a typical parent user. We uncovered a new persona with different user stories from a Parent-Only persona.
Redefining the Scope
Due to a compressed timeline and limited availability of interview participants, we discussed with the client Georgia Soccer and agreed to redefine our scope to the parents of players, since we were only able to recruit and interview 3 parent users within our timeframe.
03.
Ideate & Design
As a result of the redefined scope and problem, we were able to developed a focused problem statement. For our solutions, we also focused our ideation and redesigns to GeorgiaSoccer.org only, and did not include redesigns for the third-party tool Sports Connect, as we did not have access to an account to explore the customization capabilities.
Problem Statement (HMW)
How might we redirect parent users better to the right destination, since Georgia Soccer’s homepage is mostly used as a pass-through website, especially for repeat users?
Navigation Reorganization
(Information Architecture)
With the insights from our research process, we performed an audit of the current information architecture and came up with recommendations for the current navigation menu. The navigation menu was cluttered and contained links to almost every page on the website, regardless of hierarchy and importance. Most of the improvements we suggested were combining similar or repetitive submenu items, removing unnecessary links, renaming submenu titles, and overall simplifying and reducing the number of items in the submenus.
Assumption
Because of time limitations, we were not able to perform card sorting, so our reordering suggestions were made with assumptions based on common patterns in navigation menu hierarchy.
Information Architecture Evaluation & Recommendations
Sketch
Wireframing
The team first individually sketched ideas for new navigation menu designs and homepage improvements. We then conducted a group sketching session, and collaborated on the final wireframe solutions we believe would best improve the GeorgiaSoccer.org user experience and alleviate the parents’ pain points.
My Initial Sketches
Wireframe 1
This wireframe implements a flyout navigation dropdown menu, as opposed to the current full screen menu. It is less mental load on the user because it only shows the submenu items that the user is currently hovered over, and does not require the user to read through every submenu item within a tab or scan across the entire width of the site.
The homepage design simplifies the carousel menu into a minimal meatball menu so as not to conflict with both the navigation menu and carousel title. To make the body of the homepage more useful, I redesigned the body to display the main action items that users visit to find: Registration, Local Clubs, and Schedule. The registration buttons are at the top as it is Georgia Soccer’s primary goal. The Local Club locator and Schedule calendar are right below so that interested users can quickly find a way to participate.
Wireframe 2
This wireframe aimed to improve the navigation with minimal changes to the current design. By keeping the submenu items in one column as opposed to two columns, the full screen menu will be easier to scan and lessen the mental load of the user reading the menu.
I simplified the homepage by eliminating the carousel side menu, as it conflicts with the main menu. To make the body of the homepage more useful, I redesigned the body to display the main action items that users visit to find: Schedules, Local Clubs, and Registration. By lining up the three items in a row, it eliminates the users need to scroll extensively to find what they need.
04.
Final Proposal
New Design
We focused on the homepage for our redesign as the navigation was the biggest pain point for users based on the user surveys. In the homepage redesign, we rearranged and reprioritized the information shown on the homepage based on the responses to what information users sought when visiting the website.
Navigation Menu
Primary Suggestions:
Condensing main menu items
Flyout menu design
Submenu in a single column on current full screen menu
Flyout Menu / Screen 1
Flyout Menu / Screen 2
Flyout Menu / Screen 3
Flyout Menu / Screen 4
Full Screen Menu / Screen 1
Full Screen Menu / Screen 2
Full Screen Menu / Screen 3
Full Screen Menu / Screen 4
Homepage
Primary Suggestions:
Hero Carousel options
Expanding search bar and removing Google Translate function
Current Homepage
Homepage Redesign 1
Homepage Redesign 2
Opportunities
Sports Connect Customization
Based on our research, the most important opportunity for improvement is the third-party vendor Sports Connect that facilitates the game scheduling and player account management for Georgia Soccer. Most returning users did not seek information directly on GeorgiaSoccer.org, and used the homepage as a URL hub to link them to Sports Connect in order to manage their accounts and find game schedules.
As such, we made the following suggestions to Georgia Soccer in regards to opportunities with Sports Connect:
Work with vendor customer support to update website to latest version
Through the course of our consultancy, we discovered that Sports Connect had an updated template that required users to activate in order to upgrade. The new template had a cleaner, more user-friendly design, and better matched the Georgia Soccer homepage.
Customize website with Georgia Soccer branding
Through a cursory exploration of Sport Connect, we discovered that the tool is capable of significant customization and has potential to be branded and designed to fit the needs of Georgia Soccer users.
Embedding Sports Connect functions on GeorgiaSoccer.org
As an alternative solution, to eliminate the user’s pain point of having to perform multiple clicks to find what they need, we suggest embedding the schedule and login function on a Georgia Soccer page to eliminate extra steps for the user.
Sports Connect Custom Website Templates
Shop Consolidation
Another opportunity we uncovered was consolidating the shop and schedule/account function into Sports Connect. Currently, Georgia Soccer hosts their shop externally on BSN Sports. Sports Connect also provides a shop hosting service, and it could streamline the user experience to consolidate the current Georgia Soccer shop into the Sports Connect ecosystem.
Current Georgia Soccer Online Shop
Sports Connect Online Shop Tool
05.
Next Steps
Further
Research
Due to the compressed timeline, our team was only able to interview 3 parent users. In the future, more user interviews should be conducted with not only more parent users, but coach and referee users as those are the two other primary user bases of Georgia Soccer.
In addition, it would be ideal to perform card sorting interviews to gain more insight into the most intuitive and practical navigation hierarchy.
Testing & Validation
The project deliverable only covered research, discoveries, and solution proposals. It is important to note that none of the opportunities and proposals have been tested. Once the solutions are implemented as a low-fidelity prototype, we would need to conduct usability testing to validate the solutions. Because our designs were based mostly on parent feedback, it is crucial to perform usability testing on a wider range of users that includes coaches and referees.
Project Outcome
Little Amount of Time, but Big Results
Even with limited time and resources, we were able to get significant insights and results. We brought valuable insight to the client's software and tool set-up and uncovered the root cause of the user pain points. Our recommendations were deeper than fixing cosmetic UI issues, and solved the core issues from a technical standpoint. While Georgia Soccer had an awareness of an issue with their homepage, we were able to shed light on the true source of the user complaints—the third-party tool Sports Connect.
In addition, we uncovered a new core user base, the parent-team manager, who has their own specific needs from both Georgia Soccer and Sports Connect, separate from parent-only users. This gave Georgia Soccer additional insight into their user base and how their website affects parent-team managers differently.