DraftKings
At my first internship at a tech company, I made user-centered design decisions and proposed ideas for their Sportsbook app.
Role
Product Design Intern
Tools
Figma
Usertesting.com
Jira
Usertesting.com
Jira
Timeframe
June - Aug 2021
Team
DraftKings Sportsbook Team
Overview
I was on the Sportsbook team during my time at DraftKings, and focused on the native app. For a little more context, the DraftKings Sportsbook is a sports betting application that allows authenticated users to place wagers on sports games and events in legalized states.
As I got settled into my work-from-home routine, I quickly realized what a "fast-paced" work environment really meant. Within a couple weeks, I saw numerous revisions for the same vital app screens, as well as the tremendous effort my team put into providing design solutions for customer insights.
A lot of my tasks this summer had to do researching and refining specific features in the application. By the end of my internship, I had put together three competitive analysis presentations, conducted two usability tests, created dozens of Figma components, and animated several prototypes.
As I got settled into my work-from-home routine, I quickly realized what a "fast-paced" work environment really meant. Within a couple weeks, I saw numerous revisions for the same vital app screens, as well as the tremendous effort my team put into providing design solutions for customer insights.
A lot of my tasks this summer had to do researching and refining specific features in the application. By the end of my internship, I had put together three competitive analysis presentations, conducted two usability tests, created dozens of Figma components, and animated several prototypes.
The Bad News ☹
As mentioned earlier, most of my projects had to do with "new ideas" that are currently NDA-protected. In the meantime (+some good news!), please look below to see my first usability test at DraftKings! Fortunately, changes from this test have already been implemented.
Introducing the...
Bet Slip Deletion Methods Usability Test
Wait, what's a bet slip?
A bet slip is an electronic form that records how much money you place on a bet, your potential payout, as well as the odds for those bets. The bet slip is essentially a shopping cart and receipt for the bets that you place on DraftKings Sportsbook.
The Problem
DraftKings is revamping the current bet slip. In migrated states, satisfaction with the new bet slip decreased as users were less satisfied with removing picks from the slip - qualitative insights and numerous CX complaints showed that some users did not immediately know how to remove picks by swipe to remove, and some users thought they needed to to click "Clear All" to remove picks. This brought up a huge usability error in user's bet-making process.
We wanted to find out: Will users know how to delete singular picks from the bet slip using multiple methods?
We wanted to find out: Will users know how to delete singular picks from the bet slip using multiple methods?
This was the bet-slip after migration. The x-icon was removed in order to create a more visually pleasing bet slip that can fit more bet cards (one individual bet).
The only deletion method was swiping to delete, but many users gave complaints about it not being intuitive.
Research Goals
The main goal is to get user feedback on the process of deleting a pick. We want to figure out whether or not users are able to delete a pick by clicking the x-icon and by swiping each card.
Are users able to figure out how to delete a pick without a visual hint?
Which deletion method (one with Swipe to Delete vs. x-icon) do users prefer?
Are users able to figure out how to delete a pick without a visual hint?
Which deletion method (one with Swipe to Delete vs. x-icon) do users prefer?
Prototype
To test this, we created a prototype that only allowed two deletion capabilities - swiping to delete and clicking the x-icon - on three different bets. We asked users questions to get insights on their thought process and predictions of how to delete the bets before even attempting to physically do so. We did this with 8 DK Sportsbook users.
I made the following prototype on Figma, and made sure all relevant buttons/gestures were usable.
I made the following prototype on Figma, and made sure all relevant buttons/gestures were usable.
Test Questions
I wanted to make sure that I was ordering/asking the test questions in an unbiased way. Because we were testing users' ability to delete by both deletion methods, it was imperative that we didn't hint at either one of them. I also wanted to test users' perceived methods of deleting "things" on mobile applications.
With industry-standard apps like Spotify and Gmail implementing the swipe to delete gesture, I hypothesized that at least half of the users would know both deletion methods.
We asked the following questions to 8 DraftKings Sportsbook Users, who completed the test on their phones:
With industry-standard apps like Spotify and Gmail implementing the swipe to delete gesture, I hypothesized that at least half of the users would know both deletion methods.
We asked the following questions to 8 DraftKings Sportsbook Users, who completed the test on their phones:
Scenario:
You’re now with the bet slip open after adding three bets to your bet slip However, imagine that you would like to delete the first two bets from the bet slip.
Questions for Users:
1. Please open the link provided to open the prototype.
2. Without touching or tapping anything, do you think there is a way to delete a single bet? How would you like to do this?
3. [Task] Please keep the bet slip open and try to delete the “DAL Cowboys” bet.
4. Without touching or tapping anything, do you think that there is another way to delete a single bet from the slip? If so, what do you think it is?
5. Note that there is one more way to delete a bet from the bet-slip. What do you think it is?
6. [TASK] Please try to delete the “SF 49ers” bet from the bet-slip using your prediction. If you try something and it does not delete the bet, please explain what you did and what made you do that action. Then, move onto another possibility. If the bet cannot be deleted after three attempts, please skip to question 8.
7. If you did figure out a second way to delete the bet, please explain your thought process behind how you figured it out.
8. [TASK] There were two ways to delete the bet: 1) by tapping on the “x” on the left side of the bet and 2) by swiping across the bet to the right and tapping on the trash can. Please try both ways of deleting the bet if you have not done so yet.
9. Which method did you prefer? Why?
10. Do you think that this bet slip should allow you to delete a bet in one way, both ways, or a different way? Why?
How easy was it on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being very easy, 10 being very difficult) to delete a pick? Why did you give the rating you gave?
I took note of all the answers on an excel sheet. Usernames have been censored in the following image.
You’re now with the bet slip open after adding three bets to your bet slip However, imagine that you would like to delete the first two bets from the bet slip.
Questions for Users:
1. Please open the link provided to open the prototype.
2. Without touching or tapping anything, do you think there is a way to delete a single bet? How would you like to do this?
3. [Task] Please keep the bet slip open and try to delete the “DAL Cowboys” bet.
4. Without touching or tapping anything, do you think that there is another way to delete a single bet from the slip? If so, what do you think it is?
5. Note that there is one more way to delete a bet from the bet-slip. What do you think it is?
6. [TASK] Please try to delete the “SF 49ers” bet from the bet-slip using your prediction. If you try something and it does not delete the bet, please explain what you did and what made you do that action. Then, move onto another possibility. If the bet cannot be deleted after three attempts, please skip to question 8.
7. If you did figure out a second way to delete the bet, please explain your thought process behind how you figured it out.
8. [TASK] There were two ways to delete the bet: 1) by tapping on the “x” on the left side of the bet and 2) by swiping across the bet to the right and tapping on the trash can. Please try both ways of deleting the bet if you have not done so yet.
9. Which method did you prefer? Why?
10. Do you think that this bet slip should allow you to delete a bet in one way, both ways, or a different way? Why?
How easy was it on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being very easy, 10 being very difficult) to delete a pick? Why did you give the rating you gave?
I took note of all the answers on an excel sheet. Usernames have been censored in the following image.
Findings
Now that I had all my user feedback, it was time to synthesize all this data to present qualitative data. Here's what I found:
Users knew to swipe
All users knew that they could delete a single bet using the x-icon. Although not all users were able to figure out the swipe, the majority of users were able to figure out the feature before being told that it was an implemented method of deletion.
"As far as iOS goes, I think a large majority of the population knows that swiping is a thing."
Users prefer the x-icon
Although some users preferred the swipe method and thought it was intuitive against other iOS gestures, most users said that they liked the x-icon over swiping to delete. They thought it was a faster, more obvious way to delete bets.
"Clicking the x next to the bet would be the simplest way to delete one of the bets"
"Visually the second approach (swiping) is a lot better but I can easily see myself clicking the x to save some time"
Users want both options
Regardless of which method they said they preferred, most users wanted both methods of deletion as it could change depending on what position they were in (ie. which hand is holding the phone, if one hand is occupied, laying down, etc)
“I think you should be able to delete it both ways because it gives you options”
Users knew to swipe
All users knew that they could delete a single bet using the x-icon. Although not all users were able to figure out the swipe, the majority of users were able to figure out the feature before being told that it was an implemented method of deletion.
"As far as iOS goes, I think a large majority of the population knows that swiping is a thing."
Users prefer the x-icon
Although some users preferred the swipe method and thought it was intuitive against other iOS gestures, most users said that they liked the x-icon over swiping to delete. They thought it was a faster, more obvious way to delete bets.
"Clicking the x next to the bet would be the simplest way to delete one of the bets"
"Visually the second approach (swiping) is a lot better but I can easily see myself clicking the x to save some time"
Users want both options
Regardless of which method they said they preferred, most users wanted both methods of deletion as it could change depending on what position they were in (ie. which hand is holding the phone, if one hand is occupied, laying down, etc)
“I think you should be able to delete it both ways because it gives you options”
Suggestions
With these test, I was also able to compile a list of miscellaneous findings and suggestions from other user behaviors that I noticed during the test. These didn't necessarily answer the test goals, but could be used to further improve the bet slip.
Some users had trouble clicking the x-icon (ie. they had to try at least two times to delete the x-icon before it deleted)
Suggestion: Ensure that there is adequate space in the bet slip for users to easily click the x-icon without having to click multiple times (which may cause accidental deletion of other bets)
Suggestion: Ensure that there is adequate space in the bet slip for users to easily click the x-icon without having to click multiple times (which may cause accidental deletion of other bets)
Even with a visible x-icon, some users’ first instinct was to swipe to delete the x-icon because that’s what they were used to on iOS devices
Suggestion: In future iterations, create some kind of one-time indication or animation that the swipe to delete method is available
"Spotify and Apple music [and email] and other platforms like this have this idea that you can slide to the left for more options"
"As far as iOS goes, I think a large majority of the population knows that swiping is a thing"
Suggestion: In future iterations, create some kind of one-time indication or animation that the swipe to delete method is available
"Spotify and Apple music [and email] and other platforms like this have this idea that you can slide to the left for more options"
"As far as iOS goes, I think a large majority of the population knows that swiping is a thing"
Some users thought that the settings/gear icon would allow them to edit the bet slip, and delete individual bets from there.
Suggestion: Keep the current interaction for swipe to delete (swiping, then clicking the trash icon rather than doing a full swipe like in gmail) as users enjoy having a “confirmation” of deletion and it ensures they don’t delete it accidentally
Suggestion: Keep the current interaction for swipe to delete (swiping, then clicking the trash icon rather than doing a full swipe like in gmail) as users enjoy having a “confirmation” of deletion and it ensures they don’t delete it accidentally
Epilogue
Working at DraftKings was an incredibly fulfilling experience -- I was surrounded by talented designers, user researchers, product managers, and developers who ended up being my biggest supporters and mentors.
I think one of the biggest lessons I learned at DK was designing for users. "User-centered" design has become a buzz word in the UI/UX world, and I always saw people tossing the word around; I never really understood what that meant until this internship. Growing up as an artist and currently being a graphic design major, a lot of my artistic expressions showcase what I find beautiful - and when it comes to designing a product, I believed I could do the same thing. However, with all the data I was able to receive and analyze in the past couple weeks, I understood that it wasn't about me, or any singular user at that. It was about making data-driven decisions with various perspectives from developers, customer experience associates, product managers... the list goes on. As I continue my design journey, I want to learn how to balance all these different opinions in order to create the optimal product (but another little lesson I learned: you really can't please everyone).
Also, who knew half the work of a product designer was storytelling?
Special shoutout to Eitan, Gad, Mary, Jake, Mia, and Melanie. Thank you for always answering my slack pings and accepting my Outlook invitations ☺
Working at DraftKings was an incredibly fulfilling experience -- I was surrounded by talented designers, user researchers, product managers, and developers who ended up being my biggest supporters and mentors.
I think one of the biggest lessons I learned at DK was designing for users. "User-centered" design has become a buzz word in the UI/UX world, and I always saw people tossing the word around; I never really understood what that meant until this internship. Growing up as an artist and currently being a graphic design major, a lot of my artistic expressions showcase what I find beautiful - and when it comes to designing a product, I believed I could do the same thing. However, with all the data I was able to receive and analyze in the past couple weeks, I understood that it wasn't about me, or any singular user at that. It was about making data-driven decisions with various perspectives from developers, customer experience associates, product managers... the list goes on. As I continue my design journey, I want to learn how to balance all these different opinions in order to create the optimal product (but another little lesson I learned: you really can't please everyone).
Also, who knew half the work of a product designer was storytelling?
Special shoutout to Eitan, Gad, Mary, Jake, Mia, and Melanie. Thank you for always answering my slack pings and accepting my Outlook invitations ☺