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An efficient booking system that prevents time waste for paddle tennis players.
Role
Product Designer
Team
Four Designers from ArtCenter
Core Responsibilities
Research, Strategy, UX Prototyping
Problem
Paddle tennis players have to wait for courts, especially during peak hours.
During on-site research, interactions with locals and visitors revealed a common issue among paddle tennis players: lengthy waits for courts that lead to time waste. This initial assumption was further validated during interview sessions with stateholders from Venice Beach Recreation Center.
Goal
Preventing time waste for paddle tennis players while ensuring equitable court access for all.
Solution
01 Seamless Booking
Research Insight 01: Paddle tennis players have to wait for courts
Book a court ahead of time to prevent time waste at the court and choose desired length of time for more flexibility
02 Time Extension
Research Insight 02: Balance equitable access to public courts with provisions for regular players to enjoy extended play
Be notified to extend the booked session if the following time slots are available
03 Community Engagement
Research Insight 03: Frequent players enjoy engaging with the tight-knit paddle tennis community
Request matches with friends, meet new players of different skill levels and view community events and tournaments
04 Addressing edge cases to ensure a robust product that handles a wide range of user interactions.
In order to enhance the system’s ability to handle unusual scenarios, we also considered some of the edge cases that paddle tennis players might experience and incorporated them into the system’s design.
Edge case 01: Reschedule / Cancel bookings
Offering greater flexibility in managing paddle tennis court bookings at public facilities
Edge case 02: Report an issue
Enabling quick resolution of problems and ensuring fair usage of public courts
On-site Kiosk Screens
Our team also designed for the on-site kiosk to ensure fair and equitable court access for those without mobile devices.
Outcome
A task success rate of 98% is achieved during user testing.
After multiple design iterations, we developed a set of task success metrics and applied them in our final on-site user testing session to accurately measure the effectiveness of our design.
How we arrived at our final solution…
Problem Discovery
Navigating ambiguity and narrowing down the problem scope.
In the interaction design class, my team was tasked with designing a service for an urban space in LA. After choosing Venice beach and recognizing the wide range of potential opportunities there such as addressing limited parking and tourism, we conducted on-site research and came up with a set of opportunity Identification criteria to narrow down our project scope.
Interactions with locals and visitors revealed a common issue among paddle tennis players: lengthy waits for courts that lead to time waste. This insight led us to concentrate on paddle tennis courts, where we'll conduct further research to validate and address this specific challenge.
Research
Validating the problem: Lengthy waits for courts lead to time waste for paddle tennis players and aligning the needs of users and stakeholders.
During on-site research, interactions with locals and visitors revealed a common issue among paddle tennis players: lengthy waits for courts that lead to time waste. This initial assumption was further validated during interview sessions with stateholders from Venice Beach Recreation Center.
I learned from market research that North America is the fastest growing region for paddle tennis.
Market research helped confirm market interest and reveal the business potential of the final product. A significant growth is expected (4.31% CAGR).
Ideation
Designing for both mobile app and onsite kiosk to guarantee equal access and fairness in our product.
We prioritized designing the mobile app due to its accessibility. To effectively serve our two key user groups—frequent players familiar with the mobile app and non-frequent players or those without access to the mobile app, we decided to adopt a dual-touchpoint design strategy, focusing on both mobile apps and onsite kiosks. This approach ensures all users can equally engage with our product.
Evaluating design concepts and down selecting the booking system to design for.
Research insights led to two distinct design concepts that might address the problem. Through in-depth evaluations, focusing on user needs and stakeholder requirements, we chose to design a booking system.
Offers real time information
Players must constantly check for court status
Some players may be hogging courts
Offers real time information
Provides predictability and planning for players
Easy to implement fair-use policies
Iteration
Prioritizing sorting by courts over sorting by time.
After discovering through usability testing that players of varying skill levels prefer specific courts, the booking system was redesigned to prioritize sorting by courts, while retaining the option to sort by time, in order to cater to both frequent and non-frequent players.
Adding time extension feature to handle trade-offs between user needs and fairness.
Initially, users could choose their desired court time, but feedback revealed this could be unfair. Conversations with players indicated most spend up to two hours, except enthusiasts. To address fairness and user needs, we introduced preset time slots and an extension feature.
Reflection
Learnings
Balancing Trade-offs
Handling trade-offs by talking to stakeholders and target users to gain insider knowledge.
Design Rationals
Understanding the "why" and validate every design decision with research insights.
Being Flexible
Tweaking designs if necessary to accommodate the needs of different user groups.