Find out what is happening in the 253 Ultimate Community in the Tacoma area! See up-to-date events, connect with other players, sign up for tournaments and much more!
MVP - App has consistent navigation through views including home, events, highlights and about. Admin users can create new events that are stored and displayed on Event screen and edit/delete events. Users can RSVP for Events. App includes create new user form and 253 info. Design and layout are consistent throughout the app.
iOS 253YUP App developed by Anton Tran, Adam Kohler, Jason Lacy, Sean Jones and Stephen Gomez-Fox. Team created a functional app with navigation to different views, admin/user roles, EventView with add/edit Events, Highlights view with add/edit highlights and a 253YUP about view. Login verification for 2 coded users to show admin and user differences.
- XCode preview fail for 2 views
- Edit Event Form bug
- Event Modification enhancement
- Image Picker for Highlight View bug
- User Profile view enhancement
- Event Details page enhancement
- Event RSVP enhancement
- New User saving bug
- Youth potential Ultimate player: Miska, 16 year old soccer player, interested in trying Ultimate
- Ultimate team manager or admin: Justin, 253 Ultimate team manager
- Youth Ultimate player3: Sally, experienced teen Ultimate player
- Parent of youth Ultimate player: Karen
- Justin, the Team manager, wants to provide current information on local Ultimate events to interested new players and existing team members.
- Justin needs a way for players to sign to play in a game, and to sign a waiver for that game.
- Justin the Team Manager, needs a way to engage players and build community amongst them.
- Justin wants to encourage long-term commitment to the team and the sport
- Justin wants to highlight the hard work of his players as they participate in games or tournaments
- Miska and Sally, Ultimate players, need to find out when events are happening and how to sign up to participate in them.
- Miska and Sally want to feel connected to other Ultimate players through communication tools and keeping up on happenings in their group
- Misa and Sally want to view highlights of recent events and vote or comment on the posted highlights
- Karen, parent of youth player, also needs to find out when events are happening, how her child might sign up for them and how she can sign a waiver for them.
- Karen also wants to know more about the other Ultimate players that her child is hanging out with, and would like to connect with other parents too.
-
Tyler and his friend hear about Ultimate from a flyer posted on a bulletin board at school. Tyler and his friend want to find out more about events in the Tacoma area that would allow them to try out Ultimate and see if they like it. They have not been able to find a sport that they enjoy playing together that isn't ultra-competive and ultra-regulated. The flyer makes reference to an Ultimate app where a person could find more information about events in the region.Tyler and his friend can now have access to all upcoming events as well as receive notifications. They sign up for a beginner league that is happening at a park near their neighborhood so that they can give Ultimate a try.
-
A team manager for a local Ultimate team would like to recruit more players to his team and encourage existing players to play at more events. The manager advertises his team at local schools using an event flyer. The manager provides his phone number as a contact so that players can find out more information and sign up. 10 players who see the flyer contact him and come to play in his first Saturday game for middle schoolers!
-
A parent of a youth Ultimate player is having a hard time finding out when and where games and tournaments that her child is playing in are occurring. Her child, typical of their age, is not very good at getting the details, and neither is the team's coach. The parent is friends with another parent on the team, so together they can usually figure out what is going on.
Top Competitive Apps
- TEAM Snap - General Team Management app
- TEAM Hero - General Team Management app
- USA Ultimate - app sponsored by USA Ultimate to provide access to events and game highlights at the national level.
Strengths
- App has clips of the week people can vote on
- Shows when/how youth can get into games
- App has an About section for Community outreach
- USA Ultimate has events, video, registration abilities, as well as brackets to view
Opportunities
- Our app is specific for Ultimate in the Tacoma area and will provide event info and sign up opportunities
- Providing up to date info will be critical.
- Calendar about upcoming events happening in local area.
- Monetization of the app can pursued through local community - aim to keep it free for players
Weaknesses
- One app requires a monthly fee for premium features, limited features for free.
- Apps don’t provide much info on specific sports to get people interested or motivated to play that sport.
- USA Ultimate users mention that the app is not updated that often, crashes frequently, has problems on the registration end.
Threats
- Competitive apps have been around longer, more positive reviews.
- Team management apps provide a variety of features - events, sign up, rosters, even the snack mom list
- Apps are built for more than only Ultimate
- Ultimate is national organization and their app has depth in the background information provided on the sport.
Summary of top competitive apps:
- There are two different types of apps that compete in this space - team management, non-sport specific and Ultimate focused at the national level.
- The highly respected team management apps, Team Snap and Team Hero provide the user with lots of practical functionality for organizing teams and running them, but are more focused on the coach and parent levels.
- The USA Ultimate app has highlights of the game and national events listed, but it is an extremely buggy app with very bad reviews.
- If we can promote a free app, that will be a huge strength over other paid team sport apps.
- Having an app that would be specific towards youth ultimate in the Tacoma area would also give an edge over other general sport apps or team management apps.
- Our app aims to inform, gain interest and help youth in their Ultimate journey and the competitors apps just dont have that same goal, thus don't have an app built to do that which gives 253YUP the opportunity to gain more users than potential competitors.
Youth Ultimate is a growing sport with over 400,000 participants, ages 7 to 17, in the United States. As a sport, it competes for player engagement against more traditional sports like football and soccer. Acquiring and retaining players is an ongoing challenge!
Our app, 253 YUP helps grow the youth Ultimate community in the Tacoma region in accordance with 253 Youth Ultimate’s mission and values by engaging Tacoma-area youth who want to participate in non-traditional sports. We accomplish this by helping potential players find YUP events through an accessible list of current YUP events near them. Our app helps youth feel connected to their new sport through the creation of user profiles and up-to-date event highlights. The uncluttered interface contrasts with other more generic team management apps by providing only essential information for the player on-the-go with a razor-sharp, Ultimate focus. The app’s laid-back feel encourages youth participation and sets the right tone for a successful Ultimate experience! Parents can have peace of mind as the accompanying parent portal is required to authenticate any unknown or unapproved communications.
Prioritized list of functional components that describe the implementation from an end-user perspective.
- P0: User can find local games/meetups near them and sign up to participate
- P0: Admin can add local meetup events, update events, view sign ups
- P1: Admin can post highlights from recent games and tournaments
- P1: User can view highlights from recent games and tournaments
- P1: User can create a profile and save content consistently
- P1: Parent user can find out about events and help their player sign up to play in a game or tournament
- P2: Parent user can sign a Parental consent form / liability waiver on the app before their child participates
- P2: User profile will be refined to include more content and interconnectivity with other social media
- P2: User can view an improved and expanded Highlights section with the ability to vote for different content
- P3: User can utilize private chat/communications features for team communication and oversight (i.e. team captain, etc.)
https://www.figma.com/proto/EYFW3QyHGtY9RpdiZVg614/Untitled?node-id=23%3A4&scaling=scale-down
Images of key screens covering all the user stories
- Primary color: Dark blue #064096
- Secondary color: Grey #9E9D9D
- Primary text color: White #FFFFFF
- Secondary text color: Black #050505
What external APIs or services do you have a dependency on? Google Maps, authentication providers, REST APIs?
- Google Maps could be integrated into the event page to display location of upcoming events.
- Social Media APIs could be use to take users directly to the company's website or social media platforms.
- SendGrid API used to send, track, and validate emails.
Initial Usability Testing was conducted with 4 participants. All 4 participants had some experience with sports, but with a variety of viewpoints – player, coach, and parent.
Below are the takeaways from our first round of testing:
- Look and Feel: In general participants complimented the look and feel of the app. It was welcoming, pleasant to view and not too cluttered. One participant commented that the font-size seemed small, but this could be the result of the testing format.
- General Navigation: the navigation bar made it easy for participants to accomplish the first two tasks – view Events and view Highlights. Participants commented that more event info would be needed in “real-life” - location, level of play, age group?
- Player Profiles: This gets more complicated. Questions that were raised – do I login to view player profiles? If I want to create a player profile, is it just for players? or can parents also create a profile? When I create a profile, what level do I choose? (maybe a drop-down would be appropriate). Some of this will be driven by 253’s policies for privacy, parental supervision, etc. And of course, once I’ve created my profile, how can I edit and update my profile? Will I be able to provide feedback to others?
- Event Sign Up: Participants highlighted the need to flesh out the information available here, and clarify who can sign up for an event. Do you have to be logged in first? Do you have to have a profile first? Also, 253 would be very happy if there was a way to provide a liability waiver via this part of the tool.
Based on this feedback, we see that we have some work to do in the mechanics of Player Profiles and Event Sign Up. Some of this will be updated in our high fidelity app, and some will be address in later versions of the app, after further discussion with the customer.
Financial options for ongoing support and development:
253 YUP is all about the Tacoma community and using the community to build up the youth ultimate program. One of the best financial options for the app is to solicit community support, inviting local stores and businesses as sponsors and have their logo or information placed on the app in exchange for funds to help support the app. Another idea is to ask the Ultimate community to donate to 253YUP to help fund the app. Charging players for participation in certain leagues might be possible as the community grows around Ultimate, making it possible to put part of these funds towards development and maintenance of the app.
Active usage of our app will be considered on different scales:
- Daily: Whether a user interacts with the app beyond the login screen. This could entail viewing highlights, browsing games in the area, or just updating their profile. This would put them in the daily user category.
- Weekly/Monthly: If a user looks for games in the surrounding area or participates with other users in some way at least once a week/month, they will be considered a weekly/monthly user.
Future considerations After completing an Admin portal and the Player portal, development of the Parent portal will be important. As this app moves further ahead in development, fleshing out the team management portion of the app would be helpful for the admin and coaches using the app (team and tournament lists, player contact info, player ranking, etc), and fleshing out more parent features (signing Liability forms online, organizing car pools, snacks, etc) would be of benefit to the team.