Problem Statement
There were two primary challenges:
Firstly, many brands and athletes were signing up for the platform, but brands weren't effectively using it to secure endorsement deals with athletes, leading to inactive accounts, and athletes often signed up without being legally eligible for compensation, causing issues for brands seeking athlete partnerships.
Secondly, with the rapid passage of NIL laws allowing college athletes to profit from brand deals, Icon Source aimed to become the industry leader in breaking NIL news and providing resources.
We would tackle these issues with a website redesign.
What I Did
I was the UX design lead on this project – responsible for laying out a strategy around research, testing, modeling, high-fidelity wireframing, and carrying out the deliverables for each.
I advocated for, led, and implemented 2 new meetings (sitemap and user goals brainstorm) and 1 new deliverable (Lean UX canvas) during this process that are still used on most projects a year later.
Definition of Done
Create a more coherent and engaging website by ensuring clarity in its offerings and the "How it works" sections for each target audience. Establish clear user flows that guide visitors through the website while maintaining a punchy and exciting overall experience.
Team
One UX designer (myself), associate creative director, copywriter, visual designer, project manager, and UX design intern.
Original Icon Source homepage header
Original Icon Source "How it works" section
High-level Process
Gather quantitative/qualitative data on Icon Source users. Then translate data into achievable goals based on our timeline and scope.
Lay out their current site structure for reference, then recommend a revised structure to meet user needs. Once approved, lay out on-page content.
Take content index and lay out high fidelity wireframes to get client approval before committing to a visual concept and mockups.
With approval, dive into mockups, iterate, and prepare mocks for development.
.jpg)
Approach
We began research with a heatmap analysis of the old site using Hotjar. To frame the audiences and their goals, I decided we should utilize a Lean UX canvas . I also implemented brainstorms alongside these research deliverables to contribute to a shared understanding of the users/user goals among our team.
The scope of this project did not include user interviews, but I felt we needed to have insight into how their audiences think to supplement what we learned from speaking to stakeholders. We spoke with the client and were able to get interviews with 2 brands and 1 recruiter.
Interview Findings
From 2 stakeholder
& 3 user interviews
Stakeholders
Sentiments:
Our competitors are tech-focused, we are people-focused, and athletes don’t inherently understand the value of icon source.
Needs/Concerns:
Looking to improve UX and user journey, site structure is all over the place, and users need to trust us and know that we have their backs.
Users
Sentiments:
Like that Icon Source is safe for athletes, love that it handles tax documents, contract laws, and implications that students may not understand.
Needs/Concerns:
Want up-to-date NIL information, noted that it's not immediately apparent that they have an app/platform, and have trouble finding resources on the site as the navigation keeps changing
.jpg)
Wireframing
Once I felt like there was enough data to make confident decisions around layout and flow, I started fleshing out high fidelity wireframes and the client had 2 rounds of revisions to get them just right.
This is where the benefits of doing early research paid off. The client felt we had captured the needs of their users perfectly with our wireframe layouts.
.jpg)
Selected Screens
Final design iteration and copy implementation. I supported with layout and design on interaction-heavy sections. I also advised on UX writing to make sure copy was helpful as often as possible.
.jpg)
Learnings
It would have been great to get to test our wireframes with users. We had to operate off of findings from our interviews to provide easily understood flow and a clear understanding of the Icon Source offering.
I learned that we needed to commit time to coming up with a dev handoff process. This project was our first time using outsourced dev and we didn't know that until halfway through things. We had to come up with a plan for handoff mid-project and made the best of it, but would have produced a better end-product with more time.
.jpg)
