The Project
Every athlete is inspiring because of the determination and perseverance they show in their profession. myWNBA is a mobile app that aims to inspire the next generation of young athletes through telling personal and relatable stories of the professional players of the WNBA.
Project Details
Context
UX Design Course
Project Timeframe
4 weeks
Skills
Strategy, Journey Mapping, Interface Design
Team
Christy Lum, Jenny Nguyen, Nikita Tauro, Phoebe Lim
The Business
Founded in 1996, the Women's National Basketball Association(WNBA) is the only women’s professional basketball league in North America. The league takes pride in being iconic, inspiring and inclusive, seeking to reflect these values on and off the court.
Our Insights
The Business Problem
Attendance and viewership of WNBA games has been on a steady decline since 2010, leading to a lack of money and resources to spend on training players and creating a stronger fanbase. Almost all players must play abroad during off-season to make money, resulting in burnt out players during the regular season.
A Family Event
During our research we found that tickets to the WNBA are relatively cheap and encouraged to be bought in groups. This is why many families attend the games as a form of entertainment. With this, we saw the opportunity to target a younger audience through an intervention that is interesting and relevant to them.
Athlete Stories
All of the athletes of the WNBA have a unique story. We imagined that by surfacing the stories of their lives inside and outside of basketball, it would encourage a connection with a younger audience who look up to those in the league.
Defining the User
A young aspiring athlete between the ages of nine and fourteen.
While they’re interested in basketball, they also like to play other sports at school. They need a role model that they can relate to and activities that are exciting to watch and play. They have attended one or two WNBA games with their families and also picked a few of their favourite players.
myWNBA in Form
Scan and Pick a Team
To begin, users scan their game ticket and pick their team. As our target audience is already attending a few games, we wanted to engage with them right from the beginning of their experience.
Trading Cards
Upon scanning their ticket, users receive three random player cards. Trading cards are a popular symbol in sports and also a practical design interaction for chunking content.
Autographs
We wanted to take the personal touch an autograph has and use it in our app to make something more treasured and more precious because it has been signed by someone our young athlete can admire.
My Collection
For each trading card the user receives, they also get the corresponding player's graphic novel story. In their Collection tab, they can see everything they have unlocked so far.
Graphic Novels
We liked the idea of the interactive graphic novel as a way to make storytelling more interesting for our younger audience, compared to a long editorial article. Furthermore, we wanted to surface the idea that comics often portray the underdogs that eventually turn into heroes.
Locker Rooms
Being in a locker room is a relatable experience for young kids who use lockers daily. We took the idea of the locker room and what is discussed in this space; an intimate environment that houses fairly topical issues in sports and sexism today, we wanted to flip the negative connotations of “locker room talk” to a more inclusive space where individuals are free to share and bond.
In order to extend engagement beyond the basketball court, the Locker Rooms are only available after a game is finished.
Watch Highlights
With every ticket scanned, the user can go into the app and watch the highlights to relive its most exciting moments.
A Reflection
Due to the limitations of a school project, I feel that the viability of myWNBA was not fully addressed. I believe that this aspect could be explored in order to further evaluate the financial commitment WNBA would have make to this intervention The team would have also loved to continue to work on the Locker Room feature. Although we believe the concept is strong, we think that it could be improved visually.