The NBA Bubble
Senior UX Architect - NBA Digital // WarnerMedia
Activities - Wireframing
The 2019-2020 NBA season presented an unprecedented challenge to the product and UX teams at NBA Digital due to COVID-19. On March 11, 2020 the NBA season was temporarily suspended, leaving our teams unsure of what lay ahead for us.
In early May, we were notified of the NBA bubble concept, discovering that a limited number of teams would live in and play games at a secure location with no fans and regular PCR testing. The bubble was going to begin in early June, giving us mere weeks to launch new features within our apps. The team pulled together and was able to launch a number of new features with the goal of connecting fans to the game virtually, helping them feel closer to the season in the midst of big changes and uncertainty.
Users were prompted to cheer at three different times throughout the game with the results displayed once the cheering timer ended.
Tap to Cheer
The lack of fans in the stadium presented a challenge in a number of ways. First, without crowd noise, the game would feel strange and the quiet atmosphere might affect the players. Second, fans might feel more disconnected from games than they already did during the pandemic.
The solution to the first challenge was to create virtual crowd noise in the stadium via a complex audio mix to help the games feel authentic. For the second challenge, we launched a new feature called Tap to Cheer.
Using the NBA app, fans were prompted to cheer at various times throughout the game they were watching by using a “Cheer” button. To add more elements of fun and competition to this experience, cheers were tallied up throughout the game and season. For top cheer tallies during the game, different graphics and lights appeared within the stadium. At the end of the season, fans of teams with the top cheer tallies were invited to virtual events with players from their favorite teams.
Flow for creating a chatroom while watching a TNT OT game within the app.
NBA Watch Party
Creating live watch parties was an idea that our team had considered on and off for a long time, but the pandemic was the perfect opportunity to give it a try. Partnering with an SDK called LiveLike, we launched a way for fans to create chat rooms on both mobile app and desktop site so they could enjoy a socially distant co-watching experience with friends and family.
The biggest challenge to this project was accounting for the many video products under the NBA umbrella. I worked closely with LiveLike, providing them with the flows and means of getting fans to live video where they could create chat rooms as easily as possible.
Desktop wireframes for the upcoming trivia notification and trivia results screens.
NBA Pick ‘EM Live Trivia
NBA Pick ‘Em is the NBA’s free-to-play fantasy and gaming site. Before the NBA bubble, Pick ‘Em offered NBA trivia on a weekly basis.
To make Pick ‘Em trivia feel closer to the game, we proposed live trivia for every game. Within the NBA app or on the NBA site, fans could answer ten trivia questions when the game went live. Their entries were tracked throughout the season, and fans who scored well on trivia were entered in a sweepstakes for NBA-themed prizes. To add to the fun, a season-long live trivia leaderboard was created on the NBA Pick ‘Em site so fans could see where they stacked up against other trivia players.