Research Overview

BACKGROUND

All Season Sports Academy is a 36,000 square foot indoor sports facility, located in South Plainfield, NJ providing 4 regulation size basketball courts, 5 volleyball courts, 4 futsal courts, 2 batting cages, a party room, a training/fitness room and much more. Their goal is to provide a quality facility for athletes of all ages to grow and develop their athletic abilities in a way that suits the individual best. While providing general infomation about their facility, All Season wants to let their users to be able to sign up for clinics, classes, provide online court reservations, through their website. They currently have a functional website however want to provide for a responsive experience to make these features easily accessible.

• Determine the customer demographics (age range, income range, family info)

• Determine the positive/negative experiences for customers who currently visit indoor sports facilities

• Identify how competitors are currently attracting customers and their successes/failures

• Determine customer’s goals, needs, frustrations, and motivations

ASSUMPTIONS

• Customer base includes: parents, children, college/recent grad males, school teams, local leagues.

• Customers want to be able to check availability and make reservations online.

• Parents who sign up children for clinics and camps have higher incomes.

• Parents will wait with children instead of dropping off and picking up.

Research Methodologies

Overview

According to the CDC, almost 70% of Americans over the age of 20 are overweight, including 35% that are considered obese. Awareness and education about maintaining a healthy lifestyle continues to increase. Over 54 million Americans have paid gym memberships with the average member going to their club over 100 times, which is at an all time high. 
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Demand for indoor sports facilities has climbed in recent years due to an increase in the middle class population and consumers desire for better health and willingness to spare the expense. Over the past five years the industry has grown by 7.2% to $1.4 billion. Two key drivers for this industry is disposable income and customer sentiment. When these increase the demand rises. The indoor sports arena is expected to grow at 3.5% annually. Popularity is heightened in areas where climate and external conditions impact available outdoor options.

Youth Sports

• Youth sports has blossomed into a $15.5 billion industry.

• 21 million kids between 5 and 18 currently play non-school sports per year. Non-school sports activities include baseball, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, volleyball and gymnastics.

• Youth soccer, for example, has risen from 2.4 million players in 1995 to 3 million in 2012.

• Biggest difficulty for AAU basketball in hosting tournaments is finding a place with multiple courts and then the cost.  

Success Factors

• Easy access: A competitive advantage will be gained with an easily accessible facility that is located in close proximity to the targeted population.

• Effective promotion: An online presence and establishing connections with school and leagues.

• Economies of scale: Offering different sports options will attract and retain clients.

• Facility maintenance: Establishing an aesthetically pleasing facility with safe and clean surrounding and equipment will lead to returning customers.

Demographics

• 35 & younger age group segment held dominant position in 2016 and would continue to maintain the lead.

• Industry operators are expanding their target market to include 35 to 54 year olds and individuals under 18.

• About 40% of members are female, proportion that has increased in recent years.

• Market segmented by 35 & younger, 35 to 54, and 55 and older.

• The target customer to attend is the semi-professional and professional player seeking year round training and gaming.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Next I conducted a competitive analysis to get a better understanding of the local competition. I identified both direct competitors as well as indirect competitors and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses of physical facility, services offered, and online presence.

USER INTERVIEW

I interviewed 5 participants. 4 were male and I interviewed one married couple. The 4 male participants live in the Central Jersey area and have visited All Season Sports Academy at least once. The married couple had not been there but have been to other similar sports facilities. All participants were asked about their experience with indoor sports facilities both in person and online. While I did not conduct the interview in person at the location, I have been there personally so I have made observations about the facility, the staff, and customers.

Research Synthesis

EMPATHY MAP

Using the feedback from my user interviews, I created an empathy map to synthesize my findings. I organized the observations and statements on sticky notes and grouped common information together identifying insights and needs.

USER PERSONA

User persona's reflect our user types and helps us to build empathy with our target users. After synthesizing my user interview results I used an empathy map to determine insights and user needs. Then based on that I came up with goals, motivations, fears, needs that represent the target users.

Define + Ideate

POV AND HMW

I used the insights and needs I discovered through my research to frame my Point of View Statement then crafted my How Might We Questions to help in the brainstorm process. These tools will help to ideate and solve my design challenge with a focus on my users needs and insights.

BRAINSTORMING

Strategy

BUSINESS AND USER GOALS

I created a diagram of business, user and common goals to better understand the goals of the business and the user and how they may be shared. I referred back to the project brief and my user goals from my persona and then identified mutual goals.

PRODUCT ROADMAP

I created a product roadmap by pulling the common goals from my business and user goals document and then I assigned a priority level to each goal and came up with a feature list.

Interaction Design

UI REQUIREMENTS

• A homepage that conveniently links to the facility’s calendar.

• Facility link that provides access to information about the facility.  

• Sports link that leads to pages for each sport offered with a brief description.

• Camps + Clinics links takes to pages for camps and basketball clinics being offered.

• Rentals link takes to pricing page for court rentals and birthday party packages.

• Resources link that leads to FAQ, Blog, and Waivers pages.

• Sign Up link will allows people to purchase membership and sign up for rewards program.

• Contact Page will allow the user to reach out to the company for questions or concerns.

USER FLOW

TASK FLOW

LOW FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

I referenced my user's needs and product roadmap to come up with the initial sketches which allow me to put together initial concepts on the direction of the design and maintaining flexibility with respect to making changes.

MID FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

Mid Fidelity wireframes help to begin defining specific elements and hierarchy. I referred back to my sitemap, product roadmap, ui requirements doc, and my initial sketches to start coming up with a direction for the desktop and responsive layouts.

Usability Testing

USABILITY TEST PLAN AND TEST FINDINGS

I created a usability test plan for All Season's website to show how my participants respond to given tasks allowing me to determine the usability of my site. I referred back to my user's needs, business and user common goals, and product roadmap to come up with the scenarios and tasks that I would test for.

I then created usability test findings document with all my notes from my usability tests.

AFFINITY DIAGRAM

UI Design

BRAND STYLE TILE

I started my logo design process by coming up with a list of adjectives to describe All Season Sports Academy. Then I sketched out various options that I felt embodied these adjectives. After going through the sketching process and choosing a few concepts to iterate, I settled on a design that I felt embodied most of the brand adjectives. Then I created the brand style tile to have a resource document that provides the direction of the company's brand identity.

UI KIT

HIGH FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

The high fidelity wireframes provide a more actual look at the overall design of the website, allowing us to conduct further usability tests or handoff to developers.

Next Steps

DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION AND HANDOFF

Our design has been tested, revisions have been made, so we are now ready to move on to the next part. We will provide a document to developers to ensure that designs are made according to specifications.