Challenge
Within the multifaceted realm of pickleball, a pivotal hurdle stands in the way of fostering thriving local communities: the difficulty in uniting individuals with similar skill levels, interests, and availability. Despite the widespread popularity of the sport, these divergences pose significant challenges, encompassing issues of privacy, safety, social isolation, disjointed community development, and ineffective player pairing.
Figma, Miro, Adobe Illustrator
Tools used
Aug 2023 - May 2024
Timeline
Personal project
Project
My role
Product designer
PicklePal
A solution to help Pickle Ball players tackle with the challenges of inefficient matching, connecting and scheduling games in the hassle of busy lives
Skip to solution
After conducting interviews, surveys, and secondary research, I created an affinity map and came up with seven main clusters: motivations, goals, expectattions (joining a team/ connecting in a team), challenges, suggestions, behaviors, and online concerns.
Research goals
Research
Understand the challenges newcomers and internationals face in connecting and building relationships with local sports buddies.
Determine motivational, behavioral, and psychological factors affecting the journey of finding, joining, and staying involved in team sports.
Methods used
Online surveys
In-person interviews
Robust search functionalities for filtering profiles by interests, locations, and skill levels.
Key findings
Court search and navigation to access nearby court details (availability, fees, indoor/outdoor).
Onboarding flows gather user demographics and preferences.
Performance stats for self-fulfillment and competition.
Educational features to enhance understanding of game rules, tips, and techniques.
Lack of adequate user protection measures (e.g., community guidelines, help centers).
Communication mainly through messaging, potentially prolonging scheduling.
Competitive analysis
In order to gain a better understanding of how current business models have addressed the same user concerns, I have conducted a competitive analysis looking into the top 5 Pickleball and tennis matching apps: PicklePlay, Pickleball+, Playyourcourt, Playtomic - Padel&Pickleball and UTR Sports - Pickleball and Tennis.
Key findings
Newcomers often hesitate to join sports groups due to their lack of techniques and lower skill levels.
Users face challenges in coordinating schedules with teammates due to conflicting priorities and availability.
Cultural differences, communication skills, and people's unwillingness to open up make it difficult for users to connect personally with team members.
Some users are worried about trust, safety, and cybersecurity issues upon building connections with strangers online
User persona
After I compiled the outtakes from the research into the affinity map, I was able to create a persona that represents the main user group.
Low-fi wireframes
Moving on from the user persona and the insights gathered so far, I went ahead brainstorming early design concepts including Matching, Conversational cues, AI-powered safety assistant and event set-up.
User feedback emphasizes the importance of customizable settings, privacy transparency, intuitive design, and effective communication to enhance personalization, build trust, facilitate easy navigation, and ensure supportive AI interactions.
Early testing findings
The first version of lo-fi wireframes allowed me to run early usability tests and discover the priority revisions that need to be implemented ASAP. That decreased the number of iterations to the later versions with all effort being put into creating the hi-fi interface.
Co-design workshop
in-chat scheduling
Besides conducting early testings on the low-fi wireframes, I also conducted a co-design workshop, ensuring that the final solutions align seamlessly with their expectations and enhance their overall engagement.
flexible match settings
on-court verification
chat security tools
This safety concept extends to in-person meets or games, ensuring users' protection by generating a unique, single-use QR code each time a match is confirmed.
Concept 4: Safeguarding the in-person experience
Redefine design concepts
Based on the early testing findings and insights collected from the co-design workshop, I went ahead redefining the low-fi design concepts.
Users can explore local maps and upcoming games viewable in a map or list format and filterable by court type, number of courts, amenities, and reservation requirements.
Concept 3: Explore the local courts' map and upcoming events
Concept 1: Refine the user profile for better and more accurate match
Users can customize their profiles and receive automatic match suggestions based on shared availability, streamlining scheduling.
Concept 2: Make the scheduling process more streamlined
Users can access profiles with matching availability and send match requests directly, streamlining scheduling and reducing back-and-forth communication.
To achieve a consistent and cohesive style for PicklePal, I created a style guide. I started with a basic style guide and added new elements along the way.
Style guideline
Typography
Color
Icons
Button
Logo
Improve calendar usability with drag-and-drop features for setting times efficiently
Simplify quiz questions to focus on essential game rules, reducing cognitive load.
Reevaluate user interests to align with the app's core purpose, avoiding information overload.
Prioritize filtering options for indoor/outdoor, public/private courts, streamlining access while minimizing less crucial details.
User feedbacks
Usability testing
On-boarding
By specifying your playing preferences/ levels, PicklePal will find and connect you with perfect matches.
Introducing
PicklePal - an interactive application designed to help Pickleball players seamlessly overcome the challenges of inefficient matching, connecting, and scheduling games, even amidst their busy lives
01
Accurate matching
No more chatting back and forth to set it up. With our “Sending out match request”, users will take control when and where they want to meet.
02
Streamlined scheduling
Edit player preferences screen
Stay in the loop with upcoming games and events, effortlessly synced with your calendar for convenience. Never miss a match again while maintaining control over your schedule.
03
Manage your games
Calendar page
New to the area? No worries. PicklePal will introduce you to the huge network of local courts, games and events that take place in your area.
04
Explore local courts
At PicklePal, we put safety first. Our community guideline monitor will gently reminding users of community guidelines and prompting a moment of reflection, ensuring the welcoming environment for Pickle ball enthusiasts.
05
Respect community
Engaging in this capstone project as a product designer has been a profoundly enriching and invaluable experience. It provided me with the opportunity to operate as a solo entity, navigating through the entire design thinking process.
I recognized that precision in problem identification and understanding of the target user group are pivotal in shaping impactful and focused design solutions.
If I have more time, I would focus on deeper user engagement through continuous feedback loops, frequent testing, diverse perspectives, advanced AI-driven matchmaking, and enhanced community-building features to foster social activities and a strong sense of belonging among Pickleball enthusiasts.
