PIGEON FANTASY
ROLE
Product Designer
Visual Design
SKILLS
UX Research
UI Design
Prototyping
TOOLS
Photoshop
Figma
Survey Swap
TIMELINE
7 months
Vancouver
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Pigeon Fantasy is a fantasy hockey app that focuses on improving the fantasy experience. It was designed as a student project to fix confusing onboarding, outdated UI and user motivation (trophies, complex ranking system, and weekly challenges).
IDEATE
Product Vision, Solutions and MVP
Description
The challenges uncovered through my research, all pointed to one core issue: these apps didn't feel they were built to keep people engaged long-term.
93% of users said they didn't play for money — they wanted recognition, competition. and a platform that was easy to use, while delivering resources that enabled them to become an All-Star Fantasy Player.
If you speak to enough people about the core issue of something, the solution shouldn't be to hard to find. As fantasy is a community driven hobby, people are very keen to share their opinions on solutions. This made the solutions very clear, once I conceptualized the information.
The Challenge
Key Features
Onboarding New Players
Low Player Retention
Outdated Mobile UI
Advanced Custom League Settings
Step-by-step onboarding tutorial for players that indicate they are beginners, and a resources page with updated Rotowire articles to inform users on NHL player news
Profile page with yearly trophies, weekly challenges, life-time NHL player usage and weekly ranking system.
Use notifications as a way to remind players of on-going weekly challenges, league standing and player updates.
Mobile-first design, with an optimized layout by leveraging information architecture reducing cognitive load.
Making pigeon fantasy a one-size fits all platform. Those that want advanced league settings can be enable them in settings tab as to not confuse new players.
Key Takeaways
Description
Over the course of this project, I grew not only as a designer but as a problem solver. Designing with real-world limitations and for a passionate group of people was a worthwhile lesson in crafting intentional, user-centric products.
Some key takeaways were:
Importance of Research
Continuous user feedback through surveys, discussion boards, and testing shapes better, more user-centered solutions and designs.
As I have said before; "if you speak to enough people about the core issue of something, the solution shouldn't be to hard to find." Yes you have to conceptualize the information, however, the answers are hidden in the answers provided by users.
User's Know Best
Being a student with limited resources has taught me that there is always a way to create product with a limited budget
Constraints Drive Creativity
Design
Login Page
Dashboard
Description
I wanted the brand to feel fun, engaging, and built to represent the community. It needed to be a platform where the community feels connected.
A simple, welcoming and engaging screen that represents the brand; hockey and fantasy.
The dashboard is where users can track teams weekly progress, find the create new league page, and access key features.
Resources Page
A helpful guide for new and returning players, offering tips, FAQs, and how-to info to reduce confusion and frustration.
Profile Page
A personalized space where players can view their stats, trophy collection, year-to-year performance and team-player information
Ranking Page
The users live rank, a description of each rank, weekly challenges and a description of how each trophy is collected.
Add Players Page
An easy-to-navigate interface for managing and adding players to your fantasy lineup.
DEFINE
User Onboarding
New users are often overwhelmed due to unclear resources, lack of onboarding, and minimal guidance on how fantasy hockey works.
Users frequently lose interest mid-season without consistent incentives, progression systems, or non-monetary rewards to keep them engaged.
Player Retention
Mobile-First Experience
Advanced League-scoring
Users rely almost exclusively on their phones but struggle with cluttered screens and confusing navigation.
Users rely almost exclusively on their phones but struggle with outdated, cluttered screens and confusing navigation, causing frustration and drop-off.
Mobile-First Experience
RESEARCH
Discussion Board
Description
Exploring fantasy hockey forums on Reddit provided insight into user frustrations, desired features, and reasons for low user retention. These conversations relayed a strong desire for higher levels of user incentives/gamification focused on user retention.
As a student working on a self-directed UX project, I didn’t have access to many of the tools and resources professional design teams use. I had to improvise. This meant getting creative and focusing on methods that felt professional and realistic: chatting with real players on discussion boards, sending out surveys in fantasy group chats, and studying what other fantasy platforms were doing.
These three methods gave me a ton of insight into what players actually care about, what’s not working, and where there’s room to do better. Even without fancy tools, I was still able to get meaningful feedback from real users, in return, shaping my design focus.
I conducted surveys targeting both casual and experienced fantasy players. My questions targeted user behavior and engagement. The responses highlighted key motivations, reasons for playing, and user preferences around rankings, recognition and platform preferences.
I analyzed existing fantasy platforms such as ESPN, Yahoo, and Fantrax to identify usability issues and outdated design. This helped uncover opportunities were these other applications fell short. For example; improved onboarding, and more engaging progression systems.
My researched relayed a pattern of 3 types of players. Veteran Competitive players (Brad), Entry-Level players (Chad), and returning players that just enjoy playing for fun, reuniting them with their love for hockey (Karen).
Surveys
UI Design
League Customization
Mobile experience
New Player Support
Onboarding for New Players
Monetary Motivation
Gamified Engagement
Gamified Engagement
Fantrax and Yahoo are "clunky" and "hard to navigate."
Veteran players want more advanced stat leagues
Fantasy is Mobile first, and a poor quality app will lose players
When first player, new players are often overwhelmed
Need for tutorials, clear instructed and better first-time experience
Many players don’t play for money, but lose interest without anything to play for (trophies, medals etc.)
In-depth ranking system is highly desired even by non-competitive players
Mobile-first design and simple layout are essential
~58%
~47%
~79%
~100%
Include customizable league settings and advanced scoring
Build mobile first, ensure it is a high quality product
Include onboarding tutorial and simplify joining leagues
Focus on clean, and easy to use UI
Category
Category
Feedback
Takeaways
Improvement Insight
% of Affected Users
Competitor Analysis
User Personas
