PERSONAL PROJECT
Playbridge: A Badminton Court and Player Finder App"
Overview
Planning a badminton session can be painful, most of the time it get cancelled. Due to many factors like location, time, number of participants that have to be taken into account. But you still want to get those racket up and swinging!
Target users
Playbridge is a mobile application aiming to provide convenient ways for anyone to meet up and enjoy sessions of badminton together. Aiming at user age 18 to 50 badminton players from beginner to pros who wants to enjoy a session of badminton.
Main features
Join badminton events
Create badminton events & book courts
Payment through application
Information of attending participants & players you’ve played with
Connect with badminton player
Dicovery
Experience Mapping
An experience map was created to identify pain points and understand users' thoughts and feelings when creating a badminton session. The map revealed that users faced the most negative experience during the "Initiating stage" due to difficulties finding new groups of similar skill levels and welcoming new players. Finding a compatible group was time-consuming, and some users struggled with approaching strangers. Once a group was formed, dividing court and equipment costs was inconvenient but manageable.
To avoid these issues, some users opted for a mobile application (an event creator app) to join badminton sessions instead of observing and approaching other courts.
Scoping
Define & Refine the problem
User Needs
“To join a badminton session with new people who are willing to play and at a similar skill level to me”
Pain Points
An “event creator” mobile application can be unfair in terms of court pricing for participants. Since event creator can set their own rules. For example:
Event creator booked 3 courts for 3 hours with FIXED price of 200 THB per participant.
actual court price (hour/ court): 200 THB. Therefore, a total = 1800 THB
From my observation there are 15+ participants every session. Meaning the court price should be 120 THB (maximum) not 200 THB.
Sudden cancellation near event time can affect event creator (initially pay for the court) and other players.
Shuttlecocks fee can be difficult to determine in a session accurately.
As an event organizer, managing participant in event creator app & managing court reservation can be troublesome with uncertain numbers of participants.
Scoping
How Might We…
With 4 pain points extracted from user needs, the HMW method had been used to further explore the pain points and possible solution ideas. From ideas generated, some can be grouped together and convert into features for the application.
Feature 1: Booking
Incorporate the badminton court owner into an application. User will be able to book a court as well. From idea 1, 3, 10. Creator can set the booked court as private (nobody can join) or public (anyone can join).
Feature 2: Join
Main feature of the application, allow anyone (with account) to join any available court.
Allow user to search for events with desired skill level and time.
Court price is visible to all participants. From idea 2
Feature 3: Payment
An option to pay for court through the application. From idea 4, 11.
Feature 4: History
Allow user to see activities history and all other participants
Feature 5: Connect
Allow users to direct message other participants.
Designs
Solution to the painpoints
Unfair Court Pricing
Unfair court pricing results from lack of official pricing data. Integrating court owners into the app establishes standard rates, avoiding skepticism from enforcing actual prices on event creators. Displayed rates assume maximum players, with potential increases for fewer attendees.
Sudden cancellation
Last-minute cancellations by participants can unexpectedly reduce player numbers, altering the planned game format (2 single players per court & 4 double players per court). To mitigate this, each user has an initial "behavior score" that decreases for late cancellations, with greater deductions if causing player shortage. Low scores visually alter usernames font and profile image border colour. Even creator also has the authority to decline participant with low behavioral score.
Shuttlecocks fee calculation
From observation & talking to badminton players, a tube of shuttlecock is shared between all courts. At the end of the session, a calculation was done and all other participant pays the shuttlecock owner. I think adding extra step in the application for shuttlecock fee is unnecessary and bothersome for participants. Since the calculation needed is fairly simple.
Managing events and court reservation
Typically, event organizers need to create an event, confirm enough participants, contact the court for reservation, and potentially cancel if there are insufficient players. This multi-step process is prone to complications.
By integrating badminton court owners into the application system, event creators can streamline the process by creating events and booking courts simultaneously, eliminating the need for separate coordination.
Designs
Prototypes
Colours
The application uses a simple white/gray primary color scheme for a clean, unisex, and formal aesthetic. While the Orange Peel accent color injects energy, playfulness, and positivity, aligning with the focus on sports events.
Design
The prototypes focuses on the “Join“ event and court booking flow aiming to solve the painpoints addressed above. With finer details to enhance the user experience such as facility summary while browsing for a court, these are the common things that player search for (and find out via call with the court).
Joining a badminton event
Booking a badminton court/event
The Outcome
Conclusion
The badminton meeting application concept is novel, with no direct competitors at the time of development. It not only promotes and grows the badminton community but also increases revenue for courts through more bookings and advertising opportunities. The application could potentially expand to other sports like tennis, squash, table tennis, football, basketball, and more.