Summary
While there are many golf apps out there that help with distances and keep score there are none whose main purpose is to help improve your game.

Looper solves this need by providing an app that tracks your distances and intelligently uses GPS and your history to recommend what club you should use, helping take the guesswork out of your game and improve your chances.
Role:
User research
UI design
Visual design
Branding
User testing
Tools:
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Figma
InVision
Maze
Usability hub
Problem
There is no game improvement app in the market that’s main purpose is to keep track of a golfers club distances then take that information and use it to recommend a club based on your actual shot distances
Solution
The solution was to create an app that would track a users distances, learn and recommend the right club for the next shot. Provide GPS distances to the greens and hazards, score for up to 4 players and collect and display the users statistics helping improve play.
The Process
User Research
I conducted a user survey and was able to get a large group of people to participate in the user survey 94% were active golfers, We had a larger ratio of men to women but that is not that surprising considering women only comprise 23% of golfers.

based on the survey there would be a good market for this app, the main feature would be the app acting as your caddy and recommending what club to hit based on your distance to the green, using past recorded data of how far you hit each club.
For this app to be successful it would also have to provide GPS positioning and give distances to the green and hazards from anywhere on the course. It should be able to keep track of a users score as well as the potential 3 other playing partners and track not just the score but ball direction, the club used, sand shots, and penalties. It would ideally be able to calculate handicaps and move to the next hole automatically after putting in the scores.
Competitive Analysis
Three of the top golf apps out there are the ones I focused my competitive analysis on.
There are already a slew of golf apps out there but based on my user research and competitive analysis the closest anyone has come to my concept is that they track how far you hit a club.

My proposal will only make you track the distance you hit a club for about 5 times you hit it before it has enough data to make a logical recommendation. Of course more data is always better.

It looks like to be able to get a good number of people to make the change my app would have to offer many of the basic features, GPS positioning, Distances to green and hazards. Keep track of your score and up to 3 other players with you as well as collect
and display statistics for your game.

I feel that creating vector images of course maps rather than downloading satellite or hi-resolution images would make the app run faster and fix the complaints of slow loading or battery draining.

Finally, the right pricing will also draw in customers, there definitely has to be a free version, maybe supported by Ad revenue. A real caddie feature that recommends the club for your next shot will have great appeal in the market.
View The SWOT Analysis
User Personas
I focused on three personas for this project: A 64-year-old career man who was a pretty good golfer and wants to maintain his skills, a 50-year-old sales professional who takes a lot of clients golfing to make deals and a 25-year-old marketing professional who plays regularly but is still looking to improve.

Some of the goals and motivations for these personas were the ability to keep up with skills even as they age, the ability to keep up with clients and not look too bad, and a desire for consistency in their game.
For this app to be successful it would also have to provide GPS positioning and give distances to the green and hazards from anywhere on the course. It should be able to keep track of a users score as well as the potential 3 other playing partners and track not just the score but ball direction, the club used, sand shots, and penalties. It would ideally be able to calculate handicaps and move to the next hole automatically after putting in the scores.
Sam Hoffman
Engineer

Motivations

Game improvement
Statistics to study his games

Frustrations

Not knowing the correct distances as he ages
Not hitting the ball as far as he 
used to
Complicated interfaces

Sam Hoffman
Engineer

Motivations

Game improvement
Statistics to study his games

Frustrations

Not knowing the correct distances as he ages
Not hitting the ball as far as he 
used to
Complicated interfaces

Sam Hoffman
Engineer

Motivations

Game improvement
Statistics to study his games

Frustrations

Not knowing the correct distances as he ages
Not hitting the ball as far as he 
used to
Complicated interfaces

User Stories
I was able to map out 20 user stories for the project with 9 being High priorities and 5 being a Medium priority I kept the high priority tasks in my MVP
See The User Stories
ROLETASKIMPORTANCE
As a registered userI want to log inHIGH
As a registered userI want to play a roundHIGH
As a registered userI want to track a shotHIGH
As a new userI want to sign upHIGH
As a new userI want to sign inHIGH
Content Strategy
I prepared the content strategy based on the results of the user survey and developed personas, what functions were the most important to users and what features were the most important to help in the game
View The Content Strategy
User Flows
I created a sitemap for the project then mapped out user flows for all the High priority stories and included a few of the medium stories that were necessary to use the service.
Wireframing
I sketched the initial wireframes to design a user friendly navigation and work out some of the icons that would make sense to a golfer.

In the course of creating the low fidelity screens in figma, I realized I was doubling up on some content and the drawing of the golf holes in illustrator was very tedious. I cleaned up the design and got rid of the redundant content.

I was able to remove even more content that I had sketched out that turned out to not really be necessary. I also decided at this time that I should build a single page marketing website for the app to help get it out to more people on the web.
User Testing
User testing was a disaster! It became clear to me after the first few people took the usability test that I had made a big mistake adding the username and password to the start page as everyone automatically clicked "login" even though the instructions asked them to sign up.
It also became clear that my introduction to this request for them to test was a) not read or b) I did not explain it right so people seemed to be expecting to actually play the holes and go through an actual experience. I figured making it very clear in my emails to them that this was to test navigation user friendliness and if the icons made sense was clear.
Revisions
Based on that first round of testing I made some revisions to the design and layout of the icons as well as updated the design in some areas of the app. And tried to test it again this time in person. I personally walked a few people through the next round of testing.
People automatically click the login button without reading, even when you explain what is needed. People still clicked on the form fields even after telling them they didn’t have to but this time those were the only mis-clicks
Preference Testing
During the course of the testing some icons seemed to confuse people. I had designed a settings icon for the app using a driver adjustment tool assuming that a golfer would understand. Boy was i wrong!

This brought home how important user testing is, even the old time golfers understood use of the gear as the universal icon for settings
Branding
During the course of the testing some icons seemed to confuse people. I had designed a settings icon for the app using a driver adjustment tool assuming that a golfer would understand. Boy was i wrong!

This brought home how important user testing is, even the old time golfers understood use of the gear as the universal icon for settings
decided to keep the icon so the app would have an easily identifiable image that could also be used on the IOS icon in the app store.

I set up the type, color palette and finalized the icons, buttons and mood board images for the app.
View The Style Guide
#EAEFBD
#6CAE75
#C9E3AC
#EA9010
#37371F
Hi-Fidelity Mockups
I then produced Hi-fidelity prototypes of the screens and integrated the logo and imagery for a final pass at the clickable prototype
View The Prototype
What I Learned
As an avid golfer I have used many apps and have noted what I thought were flaws in navigation and design in this project I went about trying to fix those flaws. I designed an app that was quicker to access and simpler to use up to a point.

I ran into some issues early on with how intuitive my shot tracking was and the conclusions I came to in my initial design did not produce the results I expected with the user testing showing all the flaws. I did learn that i should do face to face testing whenever possible and do video testing when not. As you read in my testing section there where many ways this went wrong, but when I conducted a few face to face tests, I realized the problem was not all design it was also human nature. In the future I will
definitely prioritize as much in person testing as possible and maybe do a better job of explaining what the tester is to expect prior to testing.

Given more time and the hindsight I now have, I would have spent more time in the initial design phase doing a bit more testing, face to face testing, and conducted a preference test for some of my icons.

In the future I will be able to use the lessons learned from this project to improve my user testing and stretch my design skills a little bit more with every project.
Copyright ©  Allan Klar. All Rights Reserved