Content and Design Recommendations
Chicago Underwater Hockey
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Redesigning the Chicago Underwater Hockey Website
The Chicago Underwater Hockey Team is full of competitive individuals who love a crazy, niche sport. Since people don’t grow up playing underwater hockey (UWH) in gym class or at summer camps, recruiting new players can be difficult. It’s tough to convince someone to try a sport they’ve never heard of or seen. It’s even more difficult to recruit players when you tell them that UWH is played on the bottom of a pool.
The Chicago Underwater Hockey Team is a not-for-profit organization, and they do not have the budget to build a professional website. A board member requested that our team provide UX/UI recommendations to help improve their website and recruiting efforts.
Details
My Role: Researched and designed end-to-end experience. Currently working with the club to implement recommendations.
Duration: 4 weeks for research and design, implementation ongoing
Tools:
Figma/Figjam
Invision
Photoshop
Wordpress
Current Website
Kicking off user interviews
Our team conducted five user interviews, focusing on three groups: UWH board members, new players, and potential players.
By interviewing a wide range of individuals, we were able to identify differing user needs. Although the website’s primary purpose is for recruitment, new and current players also need resources to help them better understand the game and improve their skills.
Understanding user expectations
We developed a comprehensive survey to better understand what people look for and expect to see on a club website.
Their current website provides only three of the seven most commonly requested items. The lack of information on the Chicago UWH website likely frustrates potential players, leaving them unsatisfied.
Choosing our captain
Through user research, we identified three goals for the Chicago Underwater Hockey site:
Recruit new players
Provide new players easy-to-understand resources to help them improve their skills
Offer veteran players advanced drills and workouts to take them to the next level
Since the primary goal of the site is to aid recruitment efforts, we developed a user persona, Johanna, who represented a potential player.
Creating a Game Plan
Our proposed sitemap increased their content from four pages to fourteen pages, prioritizing user-requested information.
Diving into designs and iterations
After user testing, we realized that our homepage had strayed from the original purpose of the site—recruitment. For that reason, we made the following iterations:
Moved the “Resources” section lower since that section was targeted to current players.
Changed the “Connect with Us” section to an “Are You New Here” progress bar.
Added a schedule button to the “What the Puck” section.
Final Design
Future iterations
Create an alert banner that would notify players of practice cancellations.
Continue user testing the homepage, in particular the four-step process. If this testing is successful, add “Are You New Here” progress bar to all beginner pages.
A/B split test “Resources” vs “Current Players” to identify which is easier to understand.