Masters Vision Pro App
Client
Grab Games
Sector
Sports, Streaming
My Role
UX Designer
Project Time
2 Months
The Product
The Masters Tournament is one of the most prestigious competitions in men’s golf, viewed by over 12 million people in 2023. To enhance their fans’ experiences of this year’s tournament, the Masters team wanted us to tap into the unique offerings of the Vision Pro, such as the immersive spatial environments, a feature that allows users to change their physical surroundings into a different place, and the multi-view functionality.
We created a cutting-edge virtual reality app that enables fans to indulge in a “sport bar” viewing experience, with the ability to stream multiple holes at once, while also immersing themselves in Augusta National spatial environments, all from the comfort of their own homes. Our target users are golf fans seeking to experience the tournament first-hand and gain access to an otherwise exclusive golf course.
Problem
Golf fans are unable to watch more than one stream at once, forcing them to choose one hole at a time to livestream. Also, tickets to the Masters Tournament are both expensive and hard to come by, preventing most fans from experiencing the tournament or the course in-person.
Solution
Allow fans to experience the excitement of being on the course with the players, enjoying both the beautiful environment and the many nail-biting tournament moments at once as they happen in real-time.
Research Process
User Research Summary
We conducted competitive analyses, created personas, led qualitative interviews with golf fans, and crafted user flows to gain insights into our target user’s needs and discover how our competition addressed those needs within the Vision Pro ecosystem. A primary user identified through research was the avid golf fan who wants to witness all of the pivotal tournament moments in real-time, while also feeling like they’re on the course with the players. Interviews with golf fans enforced our research, suggesting they’d like access to otherwise exclusive courses and live updates on all holes throughout the tournament.
Our user research also showed that many sports fans participate in sports betting. Sports betters would greatly benefit from a multi-view feature as well as a leaderboard, as these features would provide them with all of the necessary information about the tournament in one, convenient place.
Competitive Analysis
When looking for design inspiration and direction, we considered both indirect and direct competitors in the emerging Vision Pro market.
Direct competitors included sports apps, such as the NBA, MLB and PGA Vision Pro apps. The NBA app’s multi-game live stream feature inspired our multi-view design, while the NBA and MLB leaderboards shaped our own real-time stat feature designs.
The Disney+ Vision Pro app, our indirect competitor, offers unique, movie-inspired spatial environments that influenced our designs for the Augusta National golf course environments.
Industry Design Trends
User Pain Points
Course Exclusivity
The Augusta National golf course is one of the nation’s most prestigious and exclusive golf courses, meaning that few fans will ever have access to the course
Streaming Limitations
Many viewers are unable to watch multiple livestreams of sports games at once, forcing the user to choose among the channels and risk missing history
Persona
How Might We…
Create a new experience for golf fans that focuses on immersing the user in the Augusta National course environment and all of the history-making tournament moments, so that fans can replicate the in-person tournament experience from home.
Starting the Design
Wireframing the Solution
After establishing our task flow, we created multiple digital mockups to ideate on potential solutions to user pain points, before moving on to wireframing. After considering the necessary elements to include on the homepage, we decided to move forward with the final mockup included in the below carousel, due to it’s simple and sleek design and it’s focus on the content fans would like easy access to.
Prototyping Round 1
Primary Focus - Addressing Multi-View & Spatial Environments
The first version of the prototype connected the primary user flow, which included multi-view live streaming and exploring the course, both through the course page and through the spatial environments function. We then presented our prototype to the product managers and engineers to gain a new perspective on our designs and catch any functionality or design issues early on.
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Homepage
We included a simple navigation bar, which gave fans easy access to the other pages within the app, that opens and closes as the user’s glance at the bar. We also highlighted the most important content on the homepage for easy access.
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Environments
Taking inspiration from the Disney Plus app, we selected only a few spatial environments, unique to Augusta, for fans to choose from to avoid overwhelming them. We chose to include this feature as an overlay so users can keep their place in the app.
We also added a reverse button to the upper-right hand corner that allows the user to easily revert their environment back to their physical surroundings.
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Multi-view
On the livestream page, users can access a list of current live broadcasts to add to their multi-view, so fans can achieve that “sports bar” viewing experience. As the user adds more livestreams, they can adjust the size and location of the stream within their physical space, and choose to unmute, remove or swap one of the tertiary streams with the primary stream.
Fans also have access to the leaderboard on this page, which keeps them updated on the current performance of the players.
View the Masters prototype version 1
Prototyping Round 2
Primary Focus - Iteration on Nav Bar and Spatial Environments
After presenting our designs to the product manager and engineers, we decided to reorganize the navigation bar to highlight the most important pages first to simplify the user’s access to primary pages. Based on our persona and user research, we discovered that users would visit the livestream, video, and course pages more often than the info page. Early designs of the navigation bar had the pages organized in a haphazard manner. In our redesigns, we opted to include the most important pages at the top of the navigation bar.
Before
After
One of the standout features of the Vision Pro is it’s ability to immerse users in spatial environments, creating a distinctive watching experience. After our design critique, we recognized that users had access to the environments on every page except for the livestream page. Since this is a principal feature of our app that addresses a major user problem we’re looking to solve, we decided to add the spatial environments button to the livestream page , giving the user the option to select a environment for a unique, immersive viewing experience. We think our persona, John, would love to utilize this feature while livestreaming his games.
Before
After
Preview
Final High Fidelity Prototype
The final high fidelity prototype presents a simpler, sleeker user flow for multi-view live streaming and immersive spatial environments that allows fans to experience the excitement of both the tournament and the course all from the comfort of their homes. Our persona’s needs are met, and we believe John would have an even better experience watching the game from home, giving John the satisfaction of experiencing the exclusive course, and the unique, envy-inducing experience of watching multiple holes at once, which is a golf fan’s dream.
View the Masters Vision Pro high-fidelity prototype
Moving Forward
Takeaways
Impact
After presenting our product to the Apple Vision Pro product team, we’ve discovered that our product is functional, sleek and in line with their brand guidelines. They were pleased with the design and shared it with their VP of product as a model case study of their platform in use.
What I Learned
The Apple Vision Pro is an emerging format for fans to engage with content in a way they’ve never experienced before. Since this is a new frontier, we were presented with the difficult challenge of innovating in a space with few resources to reference, which forced us to think creatively, while also taking inspiration from other apps that have paved the way in the space. This was also my first experience working with other designers and engineers and I discovered that they are great resources for feedback, advice, iteration, and new perspectives.
Next Steps
1.
Our product team will be traveling to Augusta to capture 3D footage and content to achieve the unique spatial environment experiences we created in the hi-fi prototype.
2.
We will work closely with engineers to produce the final product of this app and launch in the app store when completed for users to enjoy at home.
Let’s Connect
Thank you for taking your time reviewing my work on the Masters Vision Pro app! If you would like to see more or get in touch, my contact information is provided below.