Role
During my time as Product Design Manager for Golfshot, Apple released ARKit, enabling all iPhones for native augmented reality development. My team and I wanted to pursue this opportunity and build a new product that used AR to help golfers find distances on courses in familiar ways to them.
Challenge
AR was growing in popularity and ARKit in itself was in beta, so adopting and iterating with this bleeding-edge tech brought on many unique technical and usability challenges. Although our use case fit this model perfectly, having golfers use 3rd party binoculars and rangefinders frequently, designing for this new form factor and interaction set pushed my design ideation to the limit.
Process
After defining our KPI's, a lean canvas, and hyphothesis, my team and I ran feedback loops to measure interest. I then met with golfers to understand their needs, mindset, and behaviors, while drawing themes from their issues. We then ran technical understanding sessions, ideated solutions via design sprints and brainstorming, prototyped against further usability testing and beta groups, and launched Golfscape for continual improvement.
Goals
User: Design and develop an AR, on-course GPS solution that feels familiar for golfers, provides glance-able and useful information, and improves their game.
Business: Continuosly hit our KPI's, grow product adoption, and generate high monthly usage.
| KPI's | ||
|---|---|---|
| User satisfaction score | 8.7/10 | |
| AR viewed per round | 16.8 times | |
| AR session duration | 9.1 seconds | |
| Monthly active users | 22,000 |
Timeline
6 Months, November 2017 – April 2018
"Imagine golfing, or doing pretty much anything, while using this! You’ll have more information than everybody you're playing with. Love this new tool!"
User review
Product and UX Roadmap
Lean Canvas
As a team, we each filled out our own lean canvas to identify business and user outcomes and KPI's:
- User satisfaction score: 8+/10
- AR viewed per round: 18 times (at least once per hole)
- AR session duration: Under 10 seconds
- Monthly active users: 15,000+
Goals
User: Design and develop an AR, on-course GPS solution that feels familiar for golfers, provides glance-able and useful information, and improves their game.
Business: Continuosly hit our KPI's, grow product adoption, and generate high monthly usage.
Our Hypothesis
We then put together a clear hypothesis statement:
We believe higher on-course engagement and satisfaction will be achieved by providing an alternative way to view distances with AR display and interaction.
Discovery
Gather Feedback
We wanted to know how golfers would respond to Golfscape/AR and see if our hypothesis held water. From surveys and conversations with golfers, we discovered that AR, pin and green reading were already frequent asks. This validated the need for Golfscape. Findings:
- Distance to the Pin and AR green reading are among the most popular feature suggestions
- More than 1,500 users suggested that statistics and data visualization be enhanced
- General interest in AR and its technology is surprisingly high
Compile Brief
Using this feedback and our lean canvas, we put together a centralized brief that outlined goals, needs, and initial tech specs about Golfscape. This would pave way for our strategy, iteration, and development.
View Working Brief
Understand and Learn from Golfers
Persona
I needed a refresher on how golfers play and what their processes are. Using quantitative and qualitative feedback gathered from its parent app Golfshot, I broke down our persona:
Demographic
- Older (35-65 years old)
- 84% male, 16% female
- Social/casual golfers (1-4 times per month)
- Like-amateurs/competitors (5+ per month and tournament play)
Needs
- A GPS that displays distances
- Solves issue of not knowing how far distances are by eye/intuition
- Automates manual tasks to save time and uninterrupt playing
Behaviors
- Looking to improve some aspects of their game
- Constantly surveying for ideal distance/target
- Think 2 shots ahead
- Score to advance to the next hole
Problems
I then spoke with golfers about AR and identified pain points to see if we can get ahead of potential issues:
- AR is not as familiar as a conventional rangefinder
- Distance overlays are hard to view in the field
- Data information overload is a concern
Technical Onboarding and Ideation
Key Aspects
From Apple's ARKit guidelines and user feedback, I drew themes to work off of:
- Per ARKit, users need a way to calibrate their iPhone prior to activation
- Since this is a new interaction set, we need to onboard users with a tutorial
- Data overlays should be as clear to use as possible because of low contrast
- Display relavent information quickly to avoid interuping the on-course experience
Ideas
- Show dialog on first use explaining calibration and features
- One-click calibration process
- Viewable HUD of course aerial image and targets
- Scrollable data overlays in the foreground
High-level map and user flow of Golfscape.
Prototyping
Sketches and Wireframes
I started sketching out UI concepts and diagrams. AR was a challenge because of the mindset of looking through a lens for data visualization. Depth of field, phones interactions in an up-right position, and panning sensitivity all became factors. After rounds of stakeholder and user reviews, I refined mocks into wireframes.
View WireframesHigh Fidelity Prototypes and Flows
I then translated the wireframes into high fidelity click-through prototypes in Adobe XD. We circled back with the team with these mock-ups for internal demos and feedback loops with local golfers. The result was a solid prototype our devs can rely on for beta development and thorough testing.
View Prototype
High fidelity prototypes and versions.
User Testing and Iterations
Beta Testing
After developing and testing a beta, we sent it out to a handful of users for field testing. Findings:
- Calibration buttons to adjust target were slow and hard to use
- Scoring needed to be more obvious/exposed
- The data overlay was "inventive" but hard to read
- Information overload occured and golfers felt overwhelmed
- Satisfaction Score: 6.2/10
Iteration
We focused on improving calibration UX and data overlats since those were critical components. I went back to the drawing board, iterated on more designs, moved it into development, and shipped a fresh beta to users for testing. Findings:
- Calibration was easier to use with the new point-to-click method
- Scoring was now clear with an exposed button
- GPS data was much more accurate, larger/easier to read, and unobtrusive
- Scrolling distances instead of revealing all it at once kept it clean and simple
- Satisfaction Score: 8.7/10
The Outcome
After identifying and solving user problems in design time and testing, we were able to launch Golfscape ahead of the golf season and continually improved it into the offseason. It saw great adoption within its parent app Golfshot and was positioned as the industry's first golf AR product to market.
| KPI's | ||
|---|---|---|
| User satisfaction score | 8.7/10 | |
| AR viewed per round | 16.8 times | |
| AR session duration | 9.1 seconds | |
| Monthly active users | 22,000 |
View on App Store
