RG Matchcentre
Design and delivery of the integrated live match and statistics feature across web and native applications.
Overview
Roland Garros had a problem around low engagement of one of their main features called 'Matchcentre' which showcased in-depth live data of every match at the tournament. The ask was to improve the overall accessibility and provide an experience that all levels of fans could understand.
The research showed that the overall proposition that the app and web experience provided was not at the level expected by users who follow other live sports. Further in app features were developed alongside an improved 'Matchcentre' that contributed to increasing overall usage and adoption for the 2019 tournament release.
Role
- User Research
- Product Strategy
- UX / UI Design
- Prototyping & Testing
Duration
5 months
The challenge
• The initial brief was to improve the current UI to ensure the feature was easier to understand however there was far too much data to show in a clear way and therefore needed to be scaled back
• The real key issue was to show unique content and interpretations of the data that was unique for RG and would keep users engaged with following matches live
• There had been a lack of a mobile first approach to the current experience with the assumption that most users would visit the 'Matchcentre' on their tablet or desktop devices
• There were other foundational features and capabilities that the RG app didn't have in place that would be needed in order to boost the overall engagement to the intended audience
Roland Garros Matchcentre
The current Matchcentre experience is pinned around the 'Matchbeats' timeline which shows each and every point and resulting statistic in real time. As well as a statistics breakdown, courtvision (3D virtual replay of each point played) and a rally analysis section. These features currently cater for tennis super fans, coaches and players however for their main audience of everyday fans the content is challenging to understand and absorb.
Discovery
Research objectives
- To understand the current sentiment from the range of user segments on today's Matchcentre feature
- To analyse the current user behaviour today through the web and mobile analytics to find opportunities
- To investigate what future content users would like to see in the overall Roland Garros experience
"Too much going on in the graph, need to know your stuff to understand this fully, the key isn’t clear here either"
Consumable data
Qualitative findings
"I don’t find this useful, you still feel disconnected from the actual match which is just what I want to stay updated on"
Contextual insight
“I want to see ex-players and experienced commentators thoughts on matches, even what other people think to know if it’s worth following"
Community
Quantitative findings / Measures (Intercept Survey & Analytics review)
CSAT of overall RG App experience
CSAT of Matchcentre feature
Matchcentre feature bounce rate
Avg Matchcentre session length
Active users on RG App (Weekly)
4.3/5
2.6/5
71%
4.2 seconds
Avg - 121K
During tournament - 234K
Insight & Themes
• Users wanted to view consumable data in small clear insights if they could not view the match live, players and coaches were happy to analyse the detail after the match
• The majority of users who follow live sport are used to viewing additional commentary and insights, with many users not quite understanding what the statistics really mean and the effect they can have on the match
• Users would like to understand the previous form of the players and in particular any head to head results as this is something they seem to research additionally at present
• Fans want to follow their favourite players matches closely and sometimes multiple matches at the same time
Design & Exploration
New app feature development
New features to help drive overall engagement and increase session lengths within the app and the Matchcentre section
Head to Head
Raising the player profile data in the match view and showcasing recent form and any head to head matches
Performance insight
Providing in app match tips during live games that summarise the statistics and pivotal moments
Match & Player tracker
Users have the ability to follow up to 3 matches at a time live, favourite players and set custom alerts
Mobile first live match view
After identifying the majority of users who view the Matchcentre feature on mobile (83%) it was key to create
a clear consumable live match format that can be intuitively followed
Design challenges
Prioritisation of content
Due to the large amount of data available from each match we had to prioritise what would be hidden in order to make the mobile experience intuitive and easy to follow for all levels of users.
Native considerations
Ensuring global IOS and Android guidelines were followed to give a consistent native experience. Testing helped validate key design decisions such as using the bottom menu component across both versions as 80% of users missed key content when presented within the hamburger menu format.
Pushing new features
The team were apprehensive to push multiple new features, however due to the nature of the usage patterns (75% of annual usage over a 3 week period around the tournament) we had to provide a much richer experience to meet our KPI of increase engagement.
Immersive live data
Careful consideration was taken in order to show fans more interesting data in a single view. We added new data metrics such as service speed, rally length and winner type to increase the depth of content for users to follow and stay engaged with.
Introduced two match viewing formats for users to follow by point view and set view depending on their personal preference.
Favouriting feature
Introduced the ability to follow your favourite players closely during the tournament, receive notifications before their matches begin to make sure you do not miss a beat. This was found to be one of the main asks from users as they were only interested in mainly the top players.
The user now had the ability to track multiple matches during the tournament, which highlighted their top three matches in a banner component to catch up with everything at a glance.
Rally analysis
Reinvented the format in which rally statistics were presented to users by summarising them into three clear sections of short, medium and long rallies so all levels of fans can view the trend in the match.
Progressive disclosure is used to hide the more detailed breakdown of what happened in those rallies that is only desired by the super fans, coaches and players.
Match filtering
Developed a filtering and sorting capability that reduced the amount of content viewed in the match view in order to improve readability. We created a clear key and filters that would allow the user to view point types across the full match to see the how certain periods were dominated by either player.
Release & Measures
The new 'Matchcentre' feature was released for the 2019 RG tournament of which we recorded the following measures in order to record the designs impact that the updates had made.
• Overall CSAT of the in app experience increase from 4.3 to 4.6 after additional feature releases
• Player favourites was the most heavily used new feature with 44% of users engaging with this new functionality
• Number of app downloads during the tournament increased by 12% on the previous year
25 Seconds
62 % increase in session length on
the Matchcentre feature
4.5/5
1.9 increase in CSAT of the matchcentre feature
26%
45% decrease in the Matchcentre features bounce rate
CSAT
Bounce rate
Avg Session Length
Next steps
• To conduct a wider discovery into how to drive engagement and traffic through RG web and app products all year
round with content strategy plan to improve consistent usage
• To look into wider integrations to bring in live footage and social feeds into RG to improve the overall experience
• Build out a proposition to harness the valuable data that Infosys & RG build a platform that can be used by media
partners to analyse and report on matches/performances