In a one-month collaboration with the SaberSim team, I worked as a UX Designer on their sports betting platform. My primary responsibilities included conducting market research, competitive analysis, and designing user flows, sketches, and wireframes. These efforts aimed to enhance the platform's features and data-backed insights, ensuring they effectively served serious bettors across various sports. By focusing on these improvements, our goal was to maintain SaberSim's competitive edge in the sports betting landscape.
In the vast world of sports data websites, many platforms cater to the broadest audience possible, focusing on editorials, articles, and rankings. However, serious sports bettors often find themselves searching for a more powerful, data-driven resource tailored to their needs. That's where SaberSim comes in.
I was brought on board to conduct user research and create low-fidelity wireframes for a platform designed specifically for serious sports bettors. SaberSim's vision is to provide access to raw data and statistics within a betting context, without the distractions of opinion pieces and surface-level player rankings. By empowering users with the purest form of data, SaberSim aims to help them identify the best betting lines and player trends, all backed by solid, irrefutable evidence from player stats.
To ensure SaberSim met the needs of serious sports bettors, I conducted market research focusing on three areas:
These insights guided the platform's development, addressing the target audience's needs and preferences.
While the original SaberSim site already offered custom rankings, the competitive analysis revealed opportunities to integrate this feature more seamlessly and effectively in the new platform. By examining how competitors approached the following areas, I identified ways to enhance SaberSim's offering:
Data & Statistics: Emphasizing the depth and quality of data-driven insights to ensure users have access to the most accurate information for their custom rankings.
Sports Betting Tools: Incorporating innovative tools that facilitate the creation and management of custom rankings, making the process more intuitive and efficient.
Sportsbook Bonus Offers: Leveraging these offers to incentivize user engagement with custom rankings, fostering a more rewarding betting experience.
Amount of Sports: Expanding the range of sports supported by custom rankings to cater to a broader audience and increase user satisfaction.
In-Depth Analysis: Providing users with comprehensive analyses of their custom rankings, empowering them to make well-informed decisions and refine their strategies over time.
Focusing on these areas and refining the integration of custom rankings sets up the new SaberSim platform to distinguish itself from competitors and deliver a superior, user-centric experience that meets the unique needs of serious sports bettors.
Creating user flows for the homepage, statistics pages, and account creation was crucial in addressing the platform's MVP objectives. These flows allowed for a clear visualization of key features and facilitated the design of customizable statistics layouts. By focusing on these critical areas, the user flows laid the foundation for a platform that caters to the unique needs of serious sports bettors and provides a seamless, personalized experience.
The eight sketches were designed with the initial research and MVP objectives in mind. They display various layout options, each prioritizing key elements like statistics and sportsbook information, based on their importance to serious sports bettors. Additional features, such as game scores, updates, and search and account options, were also incorporated to enhance usability.
These sketches served as a visual guide for the decision-making process regarding the platform's hierarchy. Careful consideration was given to the organization of features in each sketch to optimize navigation and user flow. Although the sketches themselves may not explicitly display every aspect of the thought process behind them, they were instrumental in shaping the final design and ensuring a seamless user experience.
Building upon the sketches, I created wireframes for the stats and home pages that solidified the foundation for the platform's construction. I provided three examples for each to offer multiple layout options, each showcasing the necessary features in various hierarchies. This approach aimed to meet the project manager's expectations while exploring diverse solutions that catered to the product's MVPs.
These wireframes represent a strong starting point for a much larger project, reflecting a thoughtful design process that balances user needs, project requirements, and the vision of the project manager. While iterations are expected, the wireframes provide a solid base for further development, ensuring that the final platform will effectively address the needs of serious sports bettors.