A user-centered redesign of the RIT Athletics app that simplifies navigation for effortless access to scores and schedules and empowers fans with personalized team tracking alerts , all while providing a cohesive experience for real-time stats and ticketing.
Role
UI/UX Designer
Researcher
Project Duration
14 weeks
Team
6 UI/UX Designer
and Researcher
Staying connected to RIT sports is vital for the community, yet one persistent challenge remains: fans are forced to navigate a cluttered interface with disconnected tabs and hidden features to find basic information. These barriers make it harder for students and alumni to feel truly engaged and supported by the athletics community.
Key User Findings:
Consistent Pain Points
Hard to filter by sport/team; schedule feels cluttered and confusing.
No clear search for specific games, teams, or videos
Important features (favorites, notifications, tickets) feel “hidden” in the navigation.
Users expect a clear “Buy Tickets” button on the event page.
RIT.edu tab feels out of place in an athletics-focused app.
Following a favorite team or sport becomes a chore when navigation is cluttered and lacks intuitive filtering. Users are forced to scroll excessively just to find basic match information, while critical actions like purchasing tickets or finding the "favorites" screen are inconsistently placed.
This disconnect between user expectations and system behavior, such as "favoriting" a team not automatically triggering notifications, creates a frustrating, passive experience that fails to deliver the immersion fans desire.
Design Recommendations
Make sport/team filters and search prominent in Schedule and Watch.
Reorganize navigation to prioritize Teams, Schedule, Watch, Tickets.
Add a clear “Buy Tickets” button on each event detail page.
Show today’s games, live scores, & recent results on the home screen.
Surface follow + notification toggles on team and event pages.
Present key stats and highlights in a simple, glanceable layout.
Defining Our Scope
Users feel overwhelmed by a cluttered UI and disconnected navigation tabs. The lack of clear hierarchy and missing filters (e.g., sport, date, match type) makes finding specific matches or stats difficult and unintuitive.
Users expect a dynamic experience with real-time updates, live commentary, and automated personalization. Instead, they encounter a static interface that feels unresponsive to their preferences.
Users expressed a strong need for rich content, such as data visualizations, player profiles, and community features (forums, watch parties) to transform the app from a basic utility into a comprehensive sports hub.
Visioning
Marcus Chen
Receive immediate, reliable notifications for specific match kick-offs.
Access deep, real-time statistics for specific players without digging through irrelevant teams.
Watch post-match highlights and interviews immediately after the game ends.
Poor Filtering: He hates scrolling through tennis and golf scores to find the basketball team.
Bad Data: He frequently finds the RIT App frustration as it doesn’t provide an in-depth bio stats of players.
Missing Alerts: He often misses the first 10 minutes of a game because the app lets user follow particular team but the discoverability of enabling notifications is poor.
Sarah Jenkins
Quickly purchase tickets for her group without hassle.
Share the final score and team victory graphics to her social media.
Navigate the app quickly to find the schedule for the upcoming weekend.
Ticketing Friction: She abandons purchases because the app redirects her to an external website that requires a separate login.
Confusing Navigation: She gets lost in the “Schedule” page trying to find games of a particular sport.
No Sharing: She has to screenshot the app to share a score, which looks unprofessional.
Translating these personas into action, we developed Journey Maps to trace their path through the current system. This helped contextualize their specific pain points within the broader flow of tasks.
User Journey Mapping: Marcus Chen Tries to Stay Updated About a Match.
Awareness
Decision
Monitoring
Watching Match
Goal
Know when the match is happening.
Goal
Follow fav team for updates.
Goal
Get real-time updates
Goal
Access live action.
Action
Opens app - Goes to Schedule tab.
Action
Marks team as “Favorite” expecting notifications
Action
Checking app manually, no push alerts.
Action
Watches through “Watch” tab
Emotion
Curious 🤔
Emotion
Confused 😕
Emotion
Anxious 😥
Emotion
Annoyed 😑
Breakdown
No quick search feature.
Breakdown
Favoriting doesn’t trigger notifications.
Breakdown
No personalized notifications
Breakdown
Watch tab feels disorganized.
User Journey Mapping: Sarah Jenkins Buys Tickets for an RIT Match.
Awareness
Locate Tickets
Ticket Purchase
Pre-Event Planning
Goal
Decides to attend a game.
Goal
Buy ticket for selected match
Goal
Complete purchase
Goal
Organize plan with friends
Action
Goes to Schedule
Action
Looks for ticket icon
Action
Clicks “Buy Tickets”
Action
Shares game link manually to friends
Emotion
Excited 🤩
Emotion
Frustrated 😣
Emotion
Overwhelmed😫
Emotion
Annoyed 😑
Breakdown
Hard to locate a sports match (No filters)
Breakdown
Ticket option buried
(No clear CTA)
Breakdown
Redirected to external site.
Breakdown
No in-app group planning
Translating these personas into action, we developed Journey Maps to trace their path through the current system. This helped contextualize their specific pain points within the broader flow of tasks.