Courtside

We conducted interviews with people across various locations in Bangalore to explore reasons for discontinuing sports after college, the absence of sports participation, irregular play, recent declines in sports engagement, and motivations for picking up new sports, including fitness goals.

Our study focused on individuals aged 22-35, encompassing both males and females. Here are some common responses from our discussions about sports and fitness:

1. I don't mind paying & playing if the facilities are good and well maintained
2. I don't have enough people to play with
3. I am not a serious sportsperson, but once in a while I play cricket
4. I have joined Facebook groups to find new people to play with. It's challenging and keeps me interested
5. I don't know places to play
6. Lost interest in sports after college
7. My motivation to workout is to look good and be healthy
8. I play Badminton, Football and at hit gym almost everyday!

Validating the problem

Conducting a survey to validate if user interview findings extend to a broader audience.

Following discussions with our target group, we designed a survey to assess the challenges associated with these issues. Here's a summary of our survey findings:

Frequency of playing/working out

Reasons for not playing/working out

Finding players to play or workout

Survey indicates that limited court visibility and challenges in connecting players and venues are the major barriers to increased sports participation.

As smartphone users with a strong presence on social media, our target group is familiar with these platforms. To better understand them, we facilitated connections between individuals, even strangers, through social media interactions, helping us craft an ideal solution.

Courtside Whatsapp groups

We formed or joined separate WhatsApp groups for badminton and football players in Bangalore to observe interactions on a closed platform.

Duration: 2-3 months

Activities: Meetup, organising games, planning team events & finding players

Following were the key learnings:

1. Updates are real-time, and users get instant feedback
2. Organizing a game is effortless
3. Phone numbers are shared, which fosters a higher sense of reliability and trust
4. Other than a phone number and a few basic information nothing is shared on Whatsapp, more private
5. It was seen unless a new member is introduced, game frequency within the group decays over time
6. Whatsapp groups are very hyperlocal
7. Zero discoverability as no one can search for groups on Whatsapp
8. Since Whatsapp isn't specifically made for organizing any event, the information is scattered all over the chat

Screenshot of badminton WhatsApp group

Courtside Facebook Badminton group

View group

We established a Facebook group for Bangalore badminton players to study interactions on an open platform.

Duration: 2-3 months

Activities: Meetup, finding sports partners, finding games, finding venues, marketing tournaments & new sports venues

Following were the key learnings:

1. Discoverability of an open platform makes it accessible to a larger audience
2. The information organization of Facebook is much crisper when compared to other platforms such as Whatsapp
3. Updates aren't real-time on Facebook, which leads to bigger TAT and improper planning
4. Organizing an event on short notice is in itself a huge effort on Facebook
5. Reliability/trust issues are another bigger problem on Facebook
6. Privacy issues - a lot of personal details are available on Facebook which is not needed to organize a game

Screenshot of Facebook group & member post for a game

Key takeaways

Without a system in place, game planning was highly disorganized and chaotic

Persona

Leveraging our user understanding to create a persona, enhancing empathy as we explore various approaches and solutions.

Features & requirements

Considering the persona and user research, the following features were prioritized for our minimum viable product:

Instant Messenger

For organizing games & interacting with new players

Information organization

To avoid information overload, and make it easily accessible

Booking platform

For seemless & hasslefree playing experience

Search venues & players

To reduce game cancellation due to insufficient players or unavailability of grounds

Design principles

Design principles and content prioritization provided clarity in our decision-making process, uniting the team around a shared vision for the final product. Prioritizing content also enhanced our understanding of what users want to see first and the factors that expedite their decision-making.

User flow

As previously discussed in our research, we mapped the user's ground booking journey to create the app's flow.

Concepts

Wireframing provided a clearer picture of the final product, incorporating essential features and elaborating on each page. The design reflects a sporty aesthetic to align with our market and branding. Content prioritization guided the structure of every page.

Visual Palette

Our color selection aligned with a sporty, dynamic theme, emphasizing key elements in line with content prioritization. The design has to be visually appealing and coherent, reflecting our brand identity.

Please note: Snapshots of final designs are included in the section Product Hightlights