The non-profit organization Kontakt Stiftung issued a tender seeking a mobile application concept to inspire and train sports coaches and supervisors in fostering community spirit.
As a one-man-show, I designed and pitched the gamified GemeinStark app, covering the entire process with a focus on research analysis, ideation, wireframing and prototyping.
The comprehensive app concept was well received, for its innovative approach and research based design, offering additional insights into the product's problem space.
The topic of community spirit is quickly lost in everyday life.
Community spirit is an important component in sports and refers to the commitment to team spirit, mutual support, and the exemplification of ethical values such as fairness, respect, and tolerance within a sports community.
However, the topic of community spirit is quickly lost in everyday life. Coaches and supervisors are crucial for imparting community spirit, but they often lack the awareness and support for this role. As a shaping force for the athletic and personal development of athletes, this is particularly serious for children and young people.
Coaches and supervisors are crucial for imparting community spirit, but they often lack the awareness and support for this role.
Sports serve as an ideal model for a performance-oriented and at the same time value-based, peaceful, and dignified coexistence. If the sense of community in sports is neglected, it can endanger the culture of values in sports in the long term, and negatively affect the entire society.
Therefore, it is crucial that coaches and supervisors are strengthened in their role and adequately trained to convey these values and promote sustainable personal and team development.
With the GemeinStark app, coaches and supervisors in sports should be able to easily and effectively convey the field of community spirit to their athletes in everyday training in a holistic manner and act accordingly themselves.
Immediately usable in everyday training in specific situations, whether spontaneous or planned.
intuitive information architecture and navigation
The application is optimally usable on a mobile phone.
modern and intuitive UI
The methods are attractive and allow for easy access to the thematic areas for all target groups.
motivating and engaginguser experience
Supplements and updates are made continuously according to the needs of the target groups.
scalability
GemeinStark was created as part of a call for proposals, as a classic waterfall project. I decided to model the design process on the design thinking methodology and went through the following phases and activities.
Kicking off the project, I started with a domain expert interview to grow an initial understanding of the problem space, specifically the behaviors, pains points and needs of the users.
In addition to my own interview, I was provided with raw research data form interviews, observation and a survey. I analyzed and synthesized the data using affinity mapping, helping me to gather findings and insights to inform the direction of the design solution and validate existing assumptions. I also coded the data with profiling tags that would help me with the persona creation process later on.
View affinity map pdf
To assess the accessibility of the content and how well it engages users, I conducted a content audit using literature and an early prototype that was provided to me. What stood out to me was the complexity of the content and the poor execution of the delivery to the user.
During the discovery phase, two key issues became apparent. Firstly, users showed interest in the subject but lacked motivation to deal with it. Secondly, the content's complexity and preparation posed a significant barrier to making it easily accessible, applicable, and engaging. The challenges clearly revealed the potential for employing gamification as a strategy to overcome these obstacles.
Wrapping up the discovery phase, I conducted a quick competitive analysis to gather some inspiration how other applications succesfully solved the problem of teaching complex topics in an simple and engaging way.
To create alignment among the stakeholders regarding who we are designing for, and to build empathy with the users' pain points and needs, I created two personas. The profiling tags came in handy and helped speed up the process.Additionally, I added an Octalysis profile to each persona to showcase which core motivators drive them and to provide a foundation for the gamification strategy.
With the findings and insights discovered from the affinity mapping and content audit, I ran a round of 'opportunities brainstorming' to derive an initial direction on what features would benefit our users. Afterwards, I transformed them into concrete ideas with hypothesis statements and organized them in a value/effort matrix to sort out and prioritize those with the highest potential impact. Wrapping it up, I conducted an MVP mapping to clarify the order in which the features should be released. These deliverables helped to demonstrate that there is a sophisticated strategy behind the development and evolution of the application.
Next, I began creating initial drafts by establishing the IA through content- and sitemapping. The navigational structure centers around four key areas:
Afterwards, I started prototyping the application by gradually moving from flowcharts and rough sketches to low-fidelity wireframes. As the project timeframe was fairly short, this allowed me to only elaborate key contents and features of the app while still providing a rough conceptual overview of the rest, in order to provide a holistic foundation for discussion and brainstorming.
View wireframes pdfDue to the limited time available, I was only able to scratch the surface of a well-designed gamification strategy with GemeinStark. The gamification techniques I selected or am planning to use are primarily based on the Octalysis profiles tailored to the personas and on what could be easily implemented in a short timeframe. Additionally, they are intended to be straightforward for stakeholders to understand. To unlock the full potential of the strategy, there is still a considerable journey ahead.
To communicate the users that by utilizing GemeinStark they are being part of something bigger than themselves, I planned to combine the onboarding process with an epic calling.
Capitalizing on the innate desire to overcome challenges and improve one's own skills, and bridging the gap to the essence of sports, I have implemented knowledge challenges in the form of quizzes as well as unlockable medals and trophies to reward topic mastery.
Addressing social factors, I've added invitation and sharing functions to the app, tapping into users' desire for connection and enabling them to influence and engage with their social circles.
I've designed a notification system to target the fear of missing out on crucial updates and trends, as well as to alert users about the potential loss of progress for incomplete modules. This dual strategy ensures users stay informed and engaged, triggering a sense of urgency to complete their learning modules to prevent any setback in their educational journey.
Techniques to fulfill this core drive can be found in many of the previously mentioned features, like the quizzes, the progressively unlockable content or news section.
To embark on the user interface design and set the foundation for the visual style and branding of the appplication, I created a moodboard.My intention was to visually capture the warmth, diversity and unity of the community spirits’ core values through playful and welcoming imagery, while also pushing for a sporty and dynamic feel by using a vivid color range and breaking up the frame with dynamic shapes.
To wrap the project up, I put together a simple clickdummy to make the concept tangible, demonstrate the potential of the product and to get buy-in from the stakeholders.
To wrap up the project pitch, I've outlined the immediate next steps. Doing so, I wanted to show we're not just prepared but also proactive, ready to get down to business the moment we're given the green light.
I highly recommend to move to usability testing as soon as possible, in order to evaluate if the design meets user requirements and expectations, and to identify where it still needs improvements.
I would conduct additional user research, as our current understanding of the context of use, and specifically of the users, is somewhat narrow. The research questions would aim to understand their location, internet access, technical skills, learning habits, motivations for knowledge improvement, methods of evaluating learning outcomes, and reasons for becoming coaches or staff members.
With the additional research insights, we could first evaluate and optimize the established Octalysis profiles and our current gamification strategy. Then, we could expand to encompass the core drives that we are currently not addressing, thereby creating a more comprehensive and effective gamification system.
Possible future features and the IA:
I’m quite proud of the project's outcome, as it was very intense to develop a reasonable app concept combined with a gamification strategy that elicits a change in user behavior. Additionally, preparing and executing the pitch presentation all within one month was challenging.
To mention some shortcomings – in the pitch presentation, I spent too much time focusing on guiding the audience through the process of creating GemeinStark, which was somewhat off-topic. The audience primarily cared about the result, how it solves their problem, and the feasibility of the project.
Due to the tight timeline, I was unable to conduct user evaluations on the designs, an oversight that sidesteps a fundamental practice in human-centered design. Skipping this process means we may have missed key insights that could enhance the user experience and effectiveness of our application. However, I strongly advocated for it as a next step.
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