The original design for the gameplay interaction screen
The revised gameplay interaction screen.
The HCA App was created to help Team Canada coaches track player performance and statistics in real time. Coaches could then review the data and make lineup changes and create plays based on that data. Additionally, long term data would be collected to help coaches understand player (and lineup) strengths and weaknesses over time, including “vs” stats on other teams. The most important element for coaches was to be able to quickly and efficiently enter correct information, while continuing to watch gameplay.
When I was brought on to the project, the design looked good, and stat types were hierarchically organized… but something was missing. I encouraged the designers to try incorporating more differentiators to the primary actions. Altering the size of the buttons to align with their relative frequency of use, adding bright colours for ultra-quick recognition, and adding large, shortened versions of the action names to support the correct choice on-the-fly. Giving the buttons a circular shape created more natural space between the selections which reduced the potential for error, and was instrumental in setting up a visual space where usage patterns could be visually recognized and repeated.