Court App | UX Design

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My Role
UX Designer, UX Researcher

My Responsibilities
Iterative Design, Prototyping (low to high-fidelity), User Testing

Tools
Sketch, InVision, InDesign, Pen & Paper

I designed a mobile application to help tennis players find and reserve open tennis courts as well as connect with others in need of more players. My process began with opportunity identification and ended with a high-fidelity prototype of the app in Sketch/InVision.

Check out the prototype!

Interactive Prototype

The Problem

My personal experience and initial research with other tennis players showed that:

tennis players cannot view the availability of courts before arriving at the courts and must spend time waiting for a court to open
once at the courts, players cannot easily find out how long it will be until a court opens without asking players on each court
new players often struggle to find other players to play with.

MY DESIGN PROCESS

Competitive Analysis

I completed a competitive analysis to:

Categorize competitors: direct, partial, indirect, parallel, analogous
Discover my solution’s differentiators
Identify target markets: advertising campaigns, branding, positioning
Highlight competitor strengths and weaknesses
Compile a “bug list” to convert competitor weaknesses into opportunities

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User Research

As the researcher and designer on this project, I knew that I was not designing a solution for myself. While initial user research was not required for the course, I knew a thorough understanding of the context, users' needs, and users' motivations would be invaluable.

Participants:
I spoke to 7 tennis players who:

Consistently played tennis at public tennis courts
Varied in playing skill
Varied in experience playing tennis
Were looking to find new hitting partners
Participants were engaged while they were waiting for a court to open at the Palmer Field Tennis Courts on the University of Michigan’s campus

Interviews
The goals of the early-stage research were to:

Verify or update my initial problem statement
Identify the needs of tennis players playing at public courts
Identify difficulties players experience when at public courts

The interviews were conducted as 1-on-1 sessions that lasted for 20-30 minutes. Interviews were held at the Palmer Field Tennis Courts.

Findings
Synthesis of the qualitative research yielded these conclusions:

Waiting players cannot easily find out how which court will open up next and when that court will become available
Less experienced players struggle to find hitting partners and feel asking strangers to play is uncomfortable and intimidating

Ideation

Using discoveries from initial user research, I brainstormed solutions that would address user needs and help users meet their goals as tennis players.

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Then, I sketched narrated storyboards to explore potential users, their motivations, and ways they could utilize the solutions.

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Personas

Using this process, I developed 3 personas:

Primary: The Competitor
Secondary: The Loner Enthusiast
Secondary: The Newbie

I also constructed a negative persona to confirm characteristics about users my product would not be targeting.

To construct personas, I:

summarized findings from initial user research
graphed observed behaviors and characteristics like 'tennis experience' and competitiveness on relative scales
clustered similar characteristics to form believable personas that, together, adequately represented the users I interviewed

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Story Mapping

To visualize the necessary components and features of my design, I used key persona goals and needs to develop user activities.

View Full File

Paper Prototype

I used hand-drawn sketches to plan out the design, prioritize elements, and visualize the product's aesthetic. I conducted informal interviews and usability testing to iterate the paper prototype.

Digital Prototype

Usability testing, Sketch, and InVision brought the solution to life.

Check it out here! -->