The Fantasy Draft Application is core to fantasy sports and is used at the beginning of a fantasy season to select players for your team. Managers compete to draft the best team and participate in real-time together using the app. It is critical that the draft experience meets expectations for performance, stability, and intuitive use. If a draft fails, we will likely lose 10-12 loyal users. The draft experience is social, data intensive and sets the tone for a user experience that will last an entire season.
I have led two major draft design initiatives. The first was a redesign and rebuild of the draft application using Flex and released for the 2007 Football season. This included extensive interaction design, usability testing, and engineering QA to insure we released a solid product. The project was a success and remains a best in class product.
The second initiative, featured above, was built on the same application framework to support a new style of drafting called Auction Draft. Managers have a budget and must win a series of auctions, bidding on various players, to fill their roster. We explored how to add new and complex functionality while maintaining continuity between the apps. The process began with competitive auditing and interaction design, testing, visual design, and refinement throughout the development phase. An important novel feature (with a pending design patent) is a grid view that visually identifies the roster positions open and filled for each manager.
Role: Creative Director, Interaction Design
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