iTech Media (now Legend)

BET. Sports Site

Welcome to the showcase of BET. MVP - a groundbreaking digital platform designed to revolutionize the sports betting experience. This project represents a comprehensive and user-centric approach to sports betting, with a successful launch in Canada and the USA.

Designed from the ground-up - focusing on branding, design system/component design, mobile/web features, content, and future-thinking (post MVP), this sports betting site was going head-to-head with some of the big competitors. The real MVP was about to shine.

Live site: https://bet.ca/

“Champions aren’t made in the gym. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision.”

— Muhammad Ali

Role

Lead Product Designer.
Focusing on branding (new logo, colour palette), design systems, and final designs for launch.

Duration

6 Months - launching on web, then later launch on native iOS and Android devices (sports app team)

Team

  • Product owner

  • Tech lead

  • Delivery lead

  • 3 Frontend developers

  • 2 Backend developers

  • Content manager

  • SEO manager

The Vision:

The best place for everyone to learn about everything Sports Betting, and have access to personalised tools and services that will help them make smart choices

The Mission:

Help amateur sport bettors to be educated, inspired and informed about key sports and select events

Value Proposition:

Data driven, user-friendly experiences with engaging, powerful, relevant content that will help users feel confident and empowered to make sports bets online Sports Platform

Objective

The primary objective of this MVP was to create an intuitive and engaging sports betting platform that caters to both novice and experienced bettors. The design focused on providing a seamless user experience, ensuring accessibility, and integrating innovative features to enhance user engagement for an awesome betting experience across various sports.

There are few sports betting sites in Canada. Knowing this, launching a new site to reach both beginner and intermediate bettors, covering major sports and sporting events will be a new territory for us.  

KEY RESULT 1

6000 site visits post-launch, after 3 months

KEY RESULT 2

Reach at least 60% engagement overall (on-site)

Determined by:

  • Time on site: avg. session ~5 mins

  • Interaction with content (click-outs to providers)

  • Users’ visit at least 4 pages

Post launch metrics 🎯

 ~300

DAU (daily active users)

Equates to ~2400 MAU (monthly active users)

 24%

7-day retention

With a bounce rate below 40%

 8 mins

Average Session Duration

With more +5 pages viewed per session

Understand

Who, What, Why and How?

What are competitors doing?

Competitor audit - comparing 10 sports betting sites across all geos (geographical locations).

Examples include: Bookies.com, Odds Shark, ESPN and others.

Applying Jakob’s Law

'Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.'

INSIGHT 1

I don’t want to try and reinvent certain components or data driven features or pages that users are already used to from competitor sites

INSIGHT 2

I think ‘less is more’. I would design for both beginner and intermediate bettors. Most competitors tend to have too much going on within each page on their site - becoming overwhelming, and misleading with certain promos.

Kick-off workshop

I initiated a UX kick-off workshop to establish a solid foundation for our project by aligning all stakeholders on the project's vision, goals, and user-centric approach.

I ran a SWOT analysis with my team to get a clear picture of where we stand and to identify areas where we can improve. It helps us pinpoint our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, so we can make smarter design decisions and create a better user experience. Plus, it's a great way to get everyone on the same page and foster collaboration.

The Lighting Talks were also valuable, as everyone in the team, from QA, SEO, engineering and management went around and gave some demos of what expertise they can bring towards this project.

Target Audience

  • Gen Z is the largest emerging market for sports betting

  • Gen Z and Millennials are both more driven by a brand(s) social media (38%) - an opportunity area

  • Gen Z and Millennials follow less traditional thinking and are less influenced by odds

Define: The Brand

How can I define an MVP, utilising bespoke components and a new library with styling/branding?

Logo design

I had to create a logo from scratch that will be applied to all marketing material, the website and app itself.

Brand board

Building a design system

NOTE: This was before the Figma update and implementation of Tokens (Semantic and Primitive).

The pitch for applying the Atomic Design System for sports sites and apps (BET. for the first ‘test-run’).

🧱 FOUNDATIONS

*Extended colour palette

⚛️ ATOMS

NOTE: Only a few are shown below.

💠 MOLECULES

🧬 ORGANISMS

Define: The Experience

Mind-mapping the potential site experience

Defining a proof of concept

The primary objective of running a UX proof of concept with a Venn diagram was to visually and comprehensively analyze the overlapping and distinct elements of user experience (UX) within our project. Understanding the desired outcome, user desirability and technical feasibility - eventually lead to identifying the ‘sweet-spot’ for MVP.

Creating a design sprint plan

MVP flow diagram

Task Analysis and Squencing

Drawing the line on an MVP

A really great task to run with your product manager (or PO), is to first draw out the rough user flow, then have the core/main features and pages in that flow (from left to right), and then prioritise them from top-to-bottom. After, draw a line through the flow - including everything you want to launch for MVP (your MVP line). Everything above the line is what you’d want to launch in MVP, and anything below this line would be post-launch items.

Ideate

Wireframes

User testing

Above - feedback from a frequent user of other sports betting sites.

Participants made up of 10 NBA bettors

  • Testing of the home, odds and league pages

  • 1:1 remote moderated user testing

  • User based in Canada and US

  • Age range: 21-60

  • 15 mins of cognitive walkthrough of steps and tasks involved placing a bet

  • 30 mins guided journey of Bet.ca mobile prototype

User testing insights

The Final Score

Other home page rendition:

Provider review and Offer pages

Metrics after 3 months

 ~300

DAU (daily active users)

Equates to ~2400 MAU (monthly active users)

 24%

7-day retention

With a bounce rate below 40%

 8 mins

Average Session Duration

With more +5 pages viewed per session

 Basketball

Most popular sport for betting

Reflection

Building BET from the ground-up was always our game plan, we left no tactic on the sideline.

From brand identity, design systems, mobile-first components, and dark mode features; this site stands strong as the real MVP within my portfolio to date.

And whilst punting dark UI was our ‘Hail Mary’, the results speak for themselves; 6k visits and 60% increase in engagement, as Ali once said, “Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision.”