I was approached by an International Foosball Promotions (IFP) tour player to design a product strategy for a mobile app to facilitate foosball training and skill acquisition. I worked with 2 developers and stakeholder on research & product strategy, information architecture, UX design, & visual brand direction.
We worked on a suite of apps for competitive foosball players, including two published apps to track foosball tournament scores and rankings, for Apple iOS and Android:
My research with foosball players suggested that what players really need is a want is a better way to manage and make the most of their practice time. This lead to 3 key areas to address in the app design:
Practice sessions within the app include guided repetitions of drills, housed within a drill library interfacing with a backend database. A number of modifiers are associated with each drill, so it was necessary to develop a plan to organize the data.
The skill categories allow players to select the skills to target during practice, and the drills, skills, & modifiers will be used on the back end to randomize drills into workouts using a weighted distribution formula.
As I worked on the screen sketches & information architecture, my developer began creating the underlying structure of the app, providing an early interactive prototype to test potential flows and points of interaction.
The simplicity Material Design keeps the focus on the function and interactions with the app.
Even before the MVP release, this app has been through a lot of iterations based on initial feedback. Two changes in particular were based on important lessons:
1. SimplicityOur initial flow through a workout started with a screen of each drill presented in a card format. Each drill began with an instruction screen, moved to the drill execution screen, and ended with a summary screen, before returning to the main workout screen of drill cards. This meant a lot of button presses to move to the next screen. We simplified this process so that as you move through the workout, the completed drills are presented in "done" format on the same screen, making it easier to see progress while reducing button presses.
2. EngagementKeeping users engaged with the app throughout the workout is important. Unlike the other drills, which kept the player engaged throughout the drill, our "untimed repetitions" drill type asked players to go do the drill, then come back when they were done. It was hard to keep track of the number of reps completed, and tended to either fizzle out or stray into unfocused practice. We considered adding a "shot" button to hit after each execution, but that would be an impractical solution.
Our first inclination was to just take out this last metric. But we felt there was a good case for this drill, as straight repetitions build muscle memory, so we decided to ask players to perform the skill for a length of time instead of number of repetitions. This allowed us to maintain engagement throughout the drill and draw them back to the workout once the time period is over.
