Case Study: HITC Sport Live App

Overview

This project was initiated based on the shift of Here Is The City’s (HITC) business strategy, informed by a market shift from ingesting news via websites to phone applications (with the rise of smartphones). Instead of the traditional web news model, HITC developed an iOS application focusing on their sports vertical to remain competitive in the news market, increase customer retention and brand stickiness, and provide a new revenue stream in the form of application adverts.

With the release of HITC Sport Live on iOS, the company noticed higher brand loyalty and an uptick in revenue from more lucrative application adverts, however, the dependency on a small development team to keep up with newer iOS operating systems informed the strategy to focus on redesigning the core website experience to service the application’s purpose. Upon leaving the company, HITC Sport Live was sunsetted in 2020.

Defining The Problem

Our internal research, utilising Google Analytics data, uncovered a worrying trend: user engagement with our desktop news platform was sharply declining with the rise of smartphone usage, with mobile devices accounting for approximately 76% of page impressions. Furthermore, certain features, such as our fixture tables, reported inconsistent user engagement patterns. These features experienced traffic spikes at particular times but also suffered from high bounce rates and poor session performance, often serving as both an entry and exit point for users.

Most notably, these features were underutilised during and after actual football matches, when they could’ve provided additional value. To maintain our standing as a premier source of football news and to enhance both stickiness and session retention, we identified the need to meet users on their smartphones. Our objective was to create an innovative platform that would function as a football companion app, elevating the football-watching experience in a mobile-friendly format.

Project Goals

1. Adapt to the shift towards mobile consumption of news and match information
2. Improve user engagement across football content, especially during live matches
3. Reduce bounce rates and increase session duration with infinite content tailored to user preferences
4. Consolidate features into a cohesive, user-friendly mobile application to provide a more interactive and immersive football experience

Key Considerations

1. For commercial viability, the application should exclusively deliver football content, accounting for approximately 95% of our total page impressions and the vast majority of our ad revenue
2. The design should be intuitive and accessible, including navigation, iconography, imagery, and overall flow
3. The design should be modular and reactive to user preferences, including favourite football leagues, teams, and players
4. Due to resource restrictions, only one operating system will be implemented; the initial development process should focus on iOS devices, accounting for roughly 68% of mobile impressions

Users

Coming Soon

Ideal Customer Persona

• UK or European (Higher advert revenue) / male (90% audience) / 25-40 (disposable income) / Interested in the Premier league, UEFA Championship, Bundesliga (most content available for them)

 

Process & Iterations

Early Stage Mock-Ups

At first, we focussed on the primary service of the application; to provide a seamless infinite scroll displaying live and pre/post-match content, along with news articles, videos, and podcast content. The intention was to ensure that anytime users opened the application, there was something relevant to draw them in. To facilitate this, I sketched some initial workflows to set the foundation for the next static design iteration.

Early stage mock-up (Infinite Scroll)

Keeping these features together, however, complicated this workflow. Due to the coinciding nature of football matches, and the abundance of matches scheduled at the start of a season, this workflow could potentially overwhelm the main content stream when matches were upcoming, pushing high-value content down and removing user choice of what content to consume.

Tabbed Version with Navigation

In the next iteration, we separated the match feature from the news feed. Whenever the user opened the application, they would land on the news feed tab, with the option to navigate to the match and fixture feature.

News Feed and Match Tabs

This addressed content overload on the primary tab, however, after a few tests, it was clear that if left unprompted, some users would not utilise the match feature. This encouraged us to add an interactive banner that appeared throughout the app when a match was live, based on user preferences.

Interactive Live Match Banner

Favourites and User Preferences

To support custom content delivery throughout the application, we implemented a dedicated Favourites page. After an internal consultation with our team of 18 freelance football writers and editors, it was clear that multiple categories would need to be included. The initial design allowed users to favourite their favourite teams, an obvious decision. Following this consultation, we added specific competitions to the categorisation list in a second tab.

Favourites Tab

Live Match Timeline

 

Live Match Timeline

 

Final Design Solution

We wanted to implement a “second screen” system to enhance live football matches, and allow users who joined a live match after kickoff or missed it entirely to get up to speed on the state of play through a live event timeline feature.

Results & Key Takeaways

Coming Soon

Check out the review here: Salt Angel Blue