Desktop Stadium Experience
Project Type: Independent Project, Desktop UI/UX
Brief: To solve for ways to simulate fan engagement with their team and reciprocate national pride during Winter Olympics 2022.
Designing a virtual interface to create a sense of community and ways to express.
Goals
#1
Strategize ways that help fans support their teams virtually.
#2
Enhance engagement between fans online.
Content Analysis
Form
A gamified version of the Olympics site with features that help users to interact and express themselves.
Users
Sports Enthusiasts, Athletes, fan clubs.
Potential uses
Emulate a stadium-like experience for fans who couldn’t attend and engage with other fans online.
Context
The website will be fully functional on a desktop version,
Context of use: Living room, bedroom, reading table,
Cognitive Walkthrough
#1
Navigating to watch a sport is not intuitive.
#3
To stream the games you need to go to a different website.
#2
Static experience.
#4
To stream the games you need to go to a different website.
fig1: user action flow of winter olympics site
User Narrative
Archetype #1: The Freak
Goals
Follows all the sports that his national team plays
Promotes awareness about the sport on social media.
Needs
Wants to feel like he is watching with supporters in stadium.
Ways to make sure all supports stay motivated thoughout the match.
Archetype #2: The Stroller
Goals
Wants to watch interesting games.
Wants to watch games at ease.
Needs
Doesn’t want to invest too much time in scheduling or inviting.
He might participate in games if there’s any incentive.
Archetype #3: The Enthusiast
Goals
To express his insights about the game.
Needs
Ways to promote his punditry
Wants detailed insights about the games.
User Stories
The Freak
#1 User Story
As a freak, I want to watch all matches that my national team plays, so that I can support them.
#3 User Story
As a freak, I want fans to chant and hold Tifo, so that we portray national pride.
#2 User Story
As a freak, I want to make sure all my friends watch the game, so that sport gets more recognition.
The Stroller
#1 User Story
As a stroller, I want to watch interesting matches, so that I make most out of my time.
#3 User Story
As a stroller, I want to feel the stadium like ambience online, so that I don’t have to travel.
#2 User Story
As a stroller, I want to play short quizzes while watching, so that I could get an prizzes.
The Enthusiast
#1 User Story
As an enthusiast, I want game insights, so that I immerse myself into the game.
#2 User Story
As an enthusiast, I want to express my opinions, so that I get recognized for my in game intellect.
Journey Map
Concept Development
How might we make fans feel like they are in a stadium?
Fig 2: Brainstorming possible soilutions for the ‘how might we’ statement
How might we introduce stadium-like audio on a website?
Fig 3: Brainstorming possible soilutions for the ‘how might we’ statement
Optimizing Radio
Many respondents were either not happy with the song recommendations on Spotify’s radio or feel other applications understand their taste better.
Machine learning will continuously try to improve which means it might not be perfect at the start which may negatively impact user satisfaction.
How do we solve it?
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It is important for users to know why a certain suggestion has popped up in the playlist. Categorizing a playlist helps users to model what kind of songs might be present in it.
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There’s no option for the user to give feedback while listening to the radio. Adding the ‘like & dislike’ metric could improve the overall user experience and train AI better. In the current app, the suggestions act as a black box with no option to interact.
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When a user provides his feedback about the recommendations he does expect the result to be reflected in the playlist. Adding a refresh button or auto-update features could motivate the user to interact more.
Sorting Playlists
From the survey, on avg users saved over 40+ playlists (with a max 78) to their library but only listen to 6-7 playlists. I have over 37 playlists in my library and use a maximum of 3 playlists.
Spotify just lists them vertically in a menu, imagine how a person having over 70+ playlists would look like. Scrolling through these excess choices would make the user feel fatigued making the decision moreover user might avoid making the choice.
How do we solve it?
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Breaking information into smaller chunks helps users to grasp it better. Similarly, grouping playlists into realizable categories will reduce the cognitive load on users. Also, in accordance with Fitt’s law, rearranging vertical columns to horizontal groups will optimize discoverability.
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Adding the recently played playlists to the feed would make the users prioritize their choices and help to improve the discoverability as well.
Sharing Recommendati-ons
From the survey, users find it troublesome to share recommendations with their friends. Though a link can be shared across various messaging services there’s no repository where they can collect and revisit it.
How do we solve it?
The solution would be, to add a feature where users can suggest songs to their friends and the suggested songs would add to a mix.
The only problem would be how can we restrict who shares the songs with the user.
Logic Map: To explain this we’ll have a ‘test user’ who wants a song suggestion from his friend Monarch. The user has to follow Monarch’s profile which enables Monarch to recommend a song, that song would go into Monarch’s mix. Additionally, the user can manually add a song from Monarch listening activity to the mix. Following a profile would be mean willingness to accept recommendations.
Implementation: The UI of the interface includes a section for suggested mixes by the user’s friends. These mixes include all the songs that the user’s friends suggested & songs added by the user from friend’s activity.
