PRODUCT DESIGNER @ KITMAN LABS
As part of work for the Premier League we were tasked with developing an app for youth elite players at academies across the Premier League and English Football League. Out of that work developed an engaging concept. The End Of Season Review. All the work shown below was designed by me, working with Engineering (Front and Back) and a PM.
Overview
I share this project to highlight a few things:
- Design can provide more value than purely user centric design
- Design can be at the forefront of client and customer engagement
- Design process is not limited to Design Thinking -> this project was more art than science
This project has still not been built. That was always questionable, but the outcome and the need for it was purely a business need.
We had a contract in the balance with the biggest league in the world, Premier League, and we needed to push it over the line. This wasn’t the only portion which successfully influenced negotiations, but it helped. It showed our abilities as a company to be modern, innovative, user centric and willing to think past the basic requirements.
Discovery
Much of the work we were doing with the Premier League was in enhancing our system for coaches and players. We conducted 30+ semi structured interviews with a range of backroom staff, predominantly with coaches but with sports scientists, medical staff and analysts. This was part of a bigger Discovery phase, conducting generative research. All of the staff talked openly about how they need help engaging their athletes. Kitman Labs allows these staff to upload data about athlete and team performance, this can visualised and shared. The staff also have forms, scheduling, messaging, filing, medical modules and a number of other elements.
The point, these are all interesting to staff, as they help them operate day to day, but the information to the players is dry and often non contextualised.
In talking to the staff and, separately, in previous and other research we had done with the MLS, MLS Next Pro and Aarhus, it became obvious there was an opportunity to do something significant.
These screen-grabs are of the previous player overview page, used by the vendor Kitman Labs bought, which was often shared with players. It summarises the players stats based on accumulated time, dictated by data driven from calendar event attendance. Apart from the fact that total time is not a great indicator of progress, the inputting of data is often patchy, at best.
Initial Requirement
The initial aim was to redesign the old system on our Athlete Mobile App and ‘jazz’ them up. This, at least, would allow players and their parents to view the players data and hopefully ‘engage’ them. We were happy to build this, it serves all our customers/users and is generalisable, so a good start.
Ideation
The idea for the new design emerged from the countless user interviews, all of which were highlighting the mix of ways the clubs were sharing feedback on performance to players, slideshows, pdfs, videos.
This also came out of necessity. We had a presentation of our findings and designs approaching, but had no ‘WOW’. We had done a lot of work on functional staff workflows, all of which was excellent, with some good high level concepts, but for major milestone presentations I find a showstopper is important.
3 days before in a Manchester hotel room an idea appeared whilst I was doing my Spanish on Duolingo. They had just sent me my end of year review. Spotify had also released a similar concept. Statistics dressed up to look appealing and fun. The idea became easy to develop once I had a trope to piggy back on.
Original Concept
- This original concept focused on specific data collected by the teams instead of showcasing all of it
- Qualitative feedback and encouragement quotes were added, these are low effort additions which have a huge impact, the coaches face is included to reinforce the meaningfulness -> “What your coach said about you”
- Statistics are important, the right ones though. Session and game attendance can be an issue with players, so I included a reinforcing mechanism, percentage attendance, this is minor attempt to nudge the players to attend, also utilised by staff
- The relationship and bond with other players is also called out, each season the player spends every day with team mates and we wanted to capture and celebrate that. Again a simple low effort addition -> “Class off ’22”
- Finally, something very personal was needed, the final section is devoted to images of their achievements, all of which is captured by the clubs, so I dressed that up and made it symbolic. -> “Memories” + other uploads.
Version 2
Below is the more visually powerful version, on which I worked with another designer. Her work brought it to the next level.
Outcomes
Design as a discipline at a business can offer value in different ways.
The aim of this portfolio piece was to showcase some work that was more like an agency.
At Kitman Labs, we make generalisable tools, so we make a few things that all customers use. This idea was something that could possibly be applied to some of our customers, but in reality it was designed for Premier League academy players and it was made to help push a deal.
When we presented this, along with a number of other designs and plans, contract negotiations on what type of deal and the length of it was still ongoing with the Premier League. We had a gentleman’s agreement that we would sign ‘something’. That something was a lot better, a much much longer contract and a more lucrative deal after the presentation. This design went down particularly well in the presentation.
The outcome in this case was not user centred in the HCD sense, it was a business goal achievement. This concept may never actually be built. But it had a lot of value.