Sportsnet: Next-generation app concept

Context

Rogers Sportsnet’s app, on iOS and Android, carried news, scores and highlights, live radio and SN NOW streaming for subscribers. It was busiest when games were on and when news broke. Its core users were older than the audience the Sportsnet brand was aiming at, and the app had no social layer.

At kickoff, Rogers set goals to grow monthly active users, overtake its main Canadian competitor, drive subscriptions to SN NOW and SN NOW+ and earn more from advertising, with betting to follow later. The concept was to show what a future version of the app could look like on existing technology, to engage a younger audience and add value for existing customers.

Auditing the app and the market

Our desk research before kickoff started with the current app, captured flow by flow, and its store reviews, where users complained about sign-in, regional blocks and casting to the TV. I tore down eleven sports apps, first those I could install in the UK, from DAZN and Sky Sports to BBC Sport, then TSN, ESPN, theScore and CBS Sports, the Canadian competitors Rogers’ team named. Nine more, from The Athletic to Shazam and Duolingo, were for onboarding patterns.

Most of the sports apps shared one feature set and rarely went beyond it. The preliminary insights from this research, shared at kickoff on a Miro board, set that feature set beside ideas that went beyond it, from onboarding that profiles the fan through a conversation to gamification, community, watch together and data overlays on the stream. On a strategy canvas we compared Sportsnet’s offering levels with direct rivals, video services and the apps competing for a fan’s attention.

01Discovery

Grounding the proto-personas in Rogers’ segmentation

The first proto-personas came from assumptions. I rebuilt the set on Rogers’ fan segmentation research, one proto-persona for each of its six segments, and we prioritised the sports buff and the next gen, the two high-consumption segments, and the social snacker, at 22 the youngest.

Cutting the backlog by lifecycle stage

I collected Rogers’ requirements for the new app into feature buckets and added new ideas to each, then cut the same backlog by lifecycle stage: onboarding, four realms of engagement (watch, listen, read and play) and self-serve, with each feature marked in or out. The play realm did not exist in the current app at all, with no fantasy, games, betting or social features.

I placed the backlog along day-in-the-life journeys for a gameday and a day without a game, from the morning notification to a second screen and stadium mode during the game, and dark mode before bed.

02Co-creation workshops

Co-creating journeys with Rogers

We ran a set of workshops with Rogers. In one, after reviewing the competitive arena and the customer lifecycle, we gave 25 minutes to the proto-personas and the research behind them, and 50 to co-creating the key journeys for the three priority personas.

For each persona we mapped jobs, pains and gains against pain relievers, gain creators and features. In the account journey we set out the entry points into the app: signing in, creating an account, or going straight in and personalising later. In the persona journeys we followed each fan around a game, from odds and live trackers for the sports buff to highlights and sharing for the social snacker.

We left the workshop with the backlog in three priority tiers, from the news feed, scores and SN NOW at the top, through a personalised feed, vertical video, and DTC and TVE entitlements, to betting partners, fantasy integration and merchandising.

After the workshops we iterated on wireframed journeys, most of them mine, which became the basis for the final UI.

Building the home and game page from modules

The backlog ran from polls and live odds to watch parties and merchandise, and on the gameday journey a fan’s needs changed from the build-up to the final whistle.

03Delivery

Designing the final layouts and prototypes

I designed all of the final layouts and built the prototypes. The home opens on the fan’s live games, story-style highlight clips and top picks, with favourites added by search and pages for athletes. The game page runs from the build-up to the live game, and lets the fan cast to a living room Apple TV or share a clip to an Instagram story.

Rogers wanted social features built deep into the app. Watch together starts from the game page’s friends tab, and an invite can also appear on the TV. The call ends with a summary of how many watched and for how long. For betting and fantasy I designed modules for the game page and dedicated zones. I also explored stats on tap over the video, multiple cameras and locker room cameras for the watch experience.

Rebuilding onboarding

I rebuilt the onboarding on patterns from the teardown, select-to-follow with search, local teams by location and progressive questions, and on Rogers’ requirement for progressive profile building. The first screen, the location prompt and the account step stayed as they were.

One favourites screen replaced a tab for each league and a separate leagues grid, with nearby teams, leagues and each league’s teams in rows under one search. Three questions then profile the fan before the account step: how closely they follow sports, how they watch games, and what they want to do in the app.

Theming and micro-animations

Rogers’ head of design asked us for a few journeys and prototypes beyond the scope, to show their product design team how the new design could work with existing requirements, such as full light and dark mode support. I had worked on the assumption that theming would be needed, mostly with dynamic components, and delivered a set of themed screens as a starting example. I documented micro-animations where a prototype could not show a pattern on its own, such as the scroll on the game page.

Designing the component library

The final layouts were assembled from one component library in the design file, and the home reused components I had built for the other sections. The library holds the game banner in five states and each module in its states, such as a poll from its start to its result, with game page tabs, fixtures, news items, team badges and favourites sets beside them, many in light and dark. At handover, the final layouts and prototypes went to Rogers.

What was handed over, and what stayed in discovery

Many options stayed in discovery, on the boards Rogers could open throughout the engagement.

Outcome

Sportsnet used the concept to push internally for a new, more engaging app that could take on at least some of the features explored. The new app then went into delivery in steps.