5603 Ric Epley Open Project Design Document

Research Report 3.0 www.RileeEpley.com

Ric Epley Course 5503 – Research Methods Dr. A. Streeter Lindsey Wilson College

June 21, 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary................................... 1

Sketches.............................................. 17

Concept Brief.......................................... 2

Solution Design...................................... 18

DRAFT

Project Overview...................................... 3

Wireframes.. ......................................... 19

Solution................................................. 4

Usability Testing..................................... 21

Hypothesis............................................. 5

Recruitment.. ......................................... 23

Demographics and Behaviors ...................... 6

Test.................................................... 25

Personas................................................ 7

Test Results........................................... 26

Competitive Analysis.. ................................ 8

Recommendations. . ................................. 29

Exploration. . ......................................... 14

Design Process.. ..................................... 30

Task Analysis and Schedule....................... 15

Conclusion........................................... 31

Site Map . . ........................................... 16

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report provides a summary of the user research done in the development of a user centric website (www.RileeEpley.com) for a high school student/athlete that will be utilized by college scouts and recruiters. This website was created to help potential student-athletes to provide information that college coaches and recruiters need in order to access the potential candidates for limited athletic scholarships. Research that included a survey, a task user ability test and a Likert Scale indicates that there is a strong need and reception to a site of this kind. The research also indicated that an easy way to find the student’s grade point average was important. Dividing the “Media” section into “Photo” and “Video” sections was also found to be important. Those changes were implemented as a result of these findings. The goal of the student/athlete and/or parents of student/athlete is a scholarship for tuition for the player to participate in collegiate athletics while acquiring a college degree. This is a huge financial benefit for those stakeholders.

DRAFT

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CONCEPT BRIEF The general thought is that a website for an individual player would make it easier for a college recruiter or coach to obtain the information needed to further explore recruiting that potential player. Currently, recruitment is done by watching a player compete, calling former and current coaches and asking for highlight videos or researching stats at an online service (e.g., MaxPreps). Our project is designed for a male basketball player, but this model could easily be converted to any sport and both genders.

DRAFT

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PROJECT OVERVIEW Goal: RileeEpley.com Website - Responsive Site The project goal is to design and implement a www.RileeEpley.com website visually and structurally, (implementing the overall branding elements as directed) structuring the functionality/navigation, coding and programming, including specified database management with updatable maintenance screens (Zenbinder) that allow for frequent information entry simply by using text. The site is password protected for use by authorized personnel only. This website will be developed using principals from Interactive User Experience Design standards.

DRAFT

The primary goal of this site will be to use as a portal for marketing to college scouts and college basketball coaches for Rilee Epley, currently a high school sophomore. The secondary goal use will be to archive all data and media in a central location, combining his basketball history, including AAU social media, high school media, social or otherwise, father’s personal social media and traditional media, awards, scout appraisals, awards, etc., into one easily accessible source.

Potential athletes only have a small window and only a few avenues to be “seen.” Even those that do possess media often have it in multiple locations (Facebook, YouTube, embedded and distributed via email, etc.) The idea is that coaches will not only see the ability of the athlete easily, but will also have a secondary positive user experience (whether conscious or not) of that student athlete’s overall quality and ability as a person. It is speculated that the site should contain a homepage with an introductory video from the student, a stats page that includes game statistics and academic grade point averages, a media section divided into video and photographs sections and a contact page.

These ideas will be determined by the user research.

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SOLUTION

DRAFT

Develop a pilot model website for the student/athlete that contains one main place for a recruiter and/or coach to find useful information regarding a potential scholarship prospect.

4

HYPOTHESIS

DRAFT

Developing a user-centric website for an individual student/athlete will potentially help that student/athlete in the athletic college recruiting process.

Based on initial research and personal experience and knowledge in this area, an individual player website will assist in the ease and availability of information that will further increase exposure of the player to college coaches and recruiters.

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DEMOGRAPHICS AND BEHAVIORS Primary Target Audience: College Coaches and recruiters Gender: Male and female Age: Adult Background: Coaches and recruiters that are currently active in seeking college athletes

DRAFT

Secondary Target Audience: Parents and students

Gender: Male and female (Parents) Age: Adult (Parents) High School age (Students) Background: Parents and students that are currently active in seeking college athletic scholarships.

Stakeholders Gender: Male and female Age: Adult (Parents/Recruiters/Coaches) High School age (Students) Background: The primary stakeholders are the parents and potential college player(s).

The primary users are the college recruiters and coaches.

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PERSONAS A persona is a representation of the goals and behavior of a hypothesized group of users. In most cases, personas are synthesized from data collected from interviews with users.

The personas below represent the main stakeholders of a “typical” recruiter (Lewis Johnson) and coach (Tim Young), respectively. Although parents and players are also users they are not the primary user and was therefore omitted from these personas.

DRAFT

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COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS Competitive Analysis The competitor profile and overview involves analyzing competitors using Michael Porter’s framework (Kyle, 2015) based on four key aspects: •Competitors objectives •Competitors assumptions •Competitors strategy •Competitors capabilities This information was obtained through recorded, observable and opportunistic data. (Porter, Max-pedia, 2015)

DRAFT

Competitor Profile: Overview

The three sites reviewed were the National Collegiate Scouting Association, Prep Hoops and Be Recruited. www.ncsasports.org - The National Collegiate Scouting Association’s main advantage is that it is established and has a large market share. In fact, producing a personal site and also having a profile there with a link to www.RileeEpley.com is arguably a good strategy.

• • • •

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is a premium recruiting site that is effective and has a large market share the objective of this site is market share capture. the strategy is to place a percentage of the large number of subscribed athletes into college positions. very capable, large and well established.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS www.PrepHoops.com - PrepHoops creates content, but this site is not a strong competitor , lacks exposure to a large audience and goals would be better achieved through a personal site.

• • • •

DRAFT

a relatively new site that has presence in each state concentrates solely on basketball. a growing site that is intent on short to mid term revenue streams the strategy is to create content on in state players and then charge a monthly subscription fee to access content.

www.BeRecruited.com - Be Recruited is the largest of the national recruiting sites. They are driven to produce revenue long term. They have a huge network and charge each student for personalized advice.

• the largest of the national recruiting sites.

• driven to produce revenue long term and dominate market share.

• The overall brand awareness of this site and an established network of current users are the biggest advantages.

This is also a disadvantage, as there are so many athletes represented here that one could be difficult to locate.

• they have a huge network and charge each student for personalized advice.

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COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Competitor Profile: Competitive Advantage

Marketing Profile: Target Market

After researching the competitors’ websites, the following conclusions were drawn. The project website, www.RileeEpley.com, is differentiated from the competitors listed by the singularity of the objective. The other sites are simply trying to attain many recruits and hope that a large enough percentage will stick.

The strategy of this website is to promote ONE player while also demonstrating through inference that this student/athlete is also bright and supported. All this will be accomplished through a well-designed site using current user experience and user interface principals, while also incorporating a positive and personal “feel” to the site.

The market target(s) are college coaches that have the resources and need for a student/athlete scholarship. This can be on the Division 1, Division 2, Division 3 or NAIA level. The main objective is to place my student/athlete in the “right” fit for him.

The market then is a college or university that offers athletic scholarships, is academically advanced and is a nurturing and safe social environment. The avenues for getting there are through coaches and recruiters/scouts. All three competitors are targeting the same people and for the same end results.

DRAFT

Marketing Profile: Market Share The BeReruited and NCSA sites dominate the market share capturing roughly 90% between them for all sports, not just basketball. Rilee Epley site will dominate the market share specifically for Rilee Epley.

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COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Marketing Profile: Marketing Strategies/Distribution Channels/Services/Pricing Our marketing strategy consists of having all information in one site including academic accomplishments, in game film, a short, personal greeting video from student, a 2-3 minute highlight YouTube video, and contact information (www.RileeEpley.com),. “Recruiting” the AAU coaches commitment to contacting prospective schools and attending off-season exposure tournaments are vital to the recruiting process. Athlete’s should prepare and train in the off season, prepare a DVD that contains both highlights and a full-game and send them to prospective schools with contact info in the video.

DRAFT

Calling coaches and letting them know about the student’s interest in their program. Is recommended According to Tom Newell, registering the athlete at the NCAA Eligibility Center (formerly known as the ‘NCAA Clearinghouse’) is a requirement for all NCAA athletes. If you hope to obtain an athletic scholarship from an NCAA-affiliated college, your athlete must register with the eligibility center and academically qualify. (Newell, personal communication, August 4, 2015).

All this, coupled with a letter, or e-mail, to colleges alerting them to your athlete’s interest along with a link to www.RileeEpley.com can be effective in peaking interest. The note should also include some other salient points about athletic achievements and academic results. Lastly, conduct an outreach campaign and follow-up with a phone call from the student to the coach.

Pricing for this is roughly $25.00 for the domain registration and name for two years. It is, however, labor intensive, and requires approximately 100 hours of development in donated labor.

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COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

DRAFT SWOT ANALYSIS CHART

SWOT Profile: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats The SWOT Analysis compares the projected website with the competitors that were reviewed. The strengths of www.RileeEpley.com are outlined in the chart below, along with potential weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

The strengths are having only one player to promote, being designed for the user and containing most, if not all, the information needed about that player. Weaknesses include that it does require other marketing methods, has no brand awareness overall and only has penetration for coaches/recruiters looking specifically for the player represented. There are abundant opportunities to market to similar audiences and a clear threat was unattainable without further research and data.

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COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

SURVEY

An email survey was used early in the process to determine if the website objective would be advantageous for the student/athlete. Five people were surveyed. Email surveys are economical and quick. More people have email than have full Internet access. This makes email a better choice than a Web page survey for some populations.

The researcher knew all participants.

Here are the results of the survey: Test Subject 2 (Ernie Woods) Potential User 2 rated the wants in this order:

Test Subject 1 (Rick Lewis) Potential User 1 rated the wants in this order:

G.P.A. Stats Pictures Highlights Yes

Stats Pictures Highlights G.P.A. Yes

Here is the survey question:

DRAFT

As a scout or recruiter, what are the most important things that you are looking for on a website of a potential player?

• Is it highlights?

•GPA? •Photos?

•Statistics?

•Something else?

Test Subject 3 (Tom Newell) Potential User 3 rated the wants in this order: G.P.A. Stats Pictures Highlights Yes

Test Subject 5 (Eric Gardner) Potential User 1 rated the wants in this order: Stats Pictures Highlights G.P.A. Yes

Conclusion: Analysis The researcher used a survey method distributed through email. The results were positive. When reiterating, the questions may have needed to be broader and more comprehensive. Interestingly, the most important factors to the recruiters were different in order of importance than the two coaches. Both coaches ranked G.P.A. higher than the athletic stats. The recruiters all wanted to see stats as the first order of hierarchy.

Test Subject 4 (ND Kendrick) Potential User 4 rated the wants in this order: Stats Pictures Highlights Yes

Participants: Coach Tom Newell, Expert - http://hooptactics.com/page-1674788 Coach Ernie Woods, Expert - http://hooptactics.com/Ernie_Woods_Bio Rick Lewis, Recruiter - http://www.phenomhoopreport.com/about Eric Gardner, Recruiter - http://www.prephoops.com/author/prephoopseric/ Rilee Epley, Student/Athlete – www.RileeEpley.com (Coming Soon!)

Ric Epley, Parent of Student/Athlete - www.RicEpley.com ND Kendrick, Recruiter AAU Director – www.Pocketcitybasketball.com

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EXPLORATION Requirement Specifications Design a responsive website using various technologies such as , HTML, CSS, Adobe Photoshop and Zen- binder.

User centric design with information including academic accomplishments, in game film, a short, personal greeting video from student, a 2-3 minute highlight YouTube video, and contact information.

DRAFT

Other marketing strategy consists of: • • • • • • •

contacting prospective schools attending off-season exposure tournaments. train in the off season, prepare a DVD that contains both highlights and a full-game and send them to prospective schools call coaches and letting them know about the student’s interest in their program. registering the athlete at the NCAA Eligibility Center conduct an outreach campaign and follow-up with a phone call from the student to the coach.

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TASK ANALYSIS and SCHEDULE

DRAFT 15

SITE MAP

DRAFT 16

SKETCHES

DRAFT 17

SOLUTION DESIGN Easy to Navigate – using progressive disclose makes the navigation clear and simple. The navigation is predictable and obvious. The continuity and flow are also important.

Simple - The best interfaces are almost invisible to the user. They avoid unnecessary elements and are clear in the

language they use on labels and in messaging. All interfaces require some level of copywriting. Keep things conversational, not sensational. Provide clear and concise labels for actions and keep your messaging simple.

DRAFT

Focus - User interfaces should be laser focused. The purpose of system and the tasks/steps needed to acheive that purpose will aid the designer in keeping on track. The "less is more" concept will apply here as the best interface is one that is unnoticed by the user. Staying focused will yeild simpler navigation, the end product will be less cluttered and the user will have a better UX.

Clear - Be clear. Clarity is essential. The root factor of effective visual design is creating relationships to show what is part of what; what is different from what and how different elements relate to each other. One fundamental principle for clarity is economy: Don’t use more techniques than necessary to differentiate.

Forgiveness - Allows the user to make small errors and not have to start from the beginning. There is built in

navigation that "anticipates" that a mistake might occur at a particular point and options are put in place so as to help smooth getting back on track without having to redo or restart an entire process. A back button or a recover feature woud help the user to regain and retain information already entered.

Affordance – an affordance in design terms is a perceived signal or cue that an object may be used to perform a particular action. Explicit affordance (“back” and “cancel” for example), Metaphor affordance (search glass icon) and Pattern affordances (throughout) are all present.

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WIREFRAMES LOW FIDELITY HOME PAGE

STATS PAGE

DRAFT MEDIA PAGE

CONTACT PAGE

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WIREFRAMES

HOME PAGE

HIGH FIDELITY

STATS PAGE

DRAFT

MEDIA PAGE

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CONTACT PAGE

USABILITY TESTING An onsite usability test using a prototype version of www.RileeEpley.com located on the test administrator’s MAC laptop was administered. The researcher conducted an onsite usability test at his home office in Newburgh, IN .

The purpose of the test was to assess the usability of the web interface design, information flow, and information architecture. The tester was located in the test room. The participants were tested during a weeklong intermittent schedule from June 1 – June 9, 2016. The session captured each participant’s navigational choices, task completion rates, comments, overall satisfaction ratings, questions and feedback.

DRAFT

Seven participants were tested in the total testing time period. Each was tested individually and did not interact in a waiting area. Each individual session lasted approximately one hour. Test scenarios differed over the several days in time of day.

In general all participants found the www.RileeEpley.com web site prototype to be clear, straightforward, and 92% thought the web site was easy to use. All 7 of the 7 participants (100%) used some type of sports website daily to find information about potential recruits or recruiting, in general.

The test identified only a few minor problems including: 1.

The lack of discerning between AAU stats and high school stats.

2.

Locating the student’s grade point average more easily.

3.

Request for more photos and highlight videos.

This document contains the participant feedback, satisfactions ratings, task completion rates, ease or difficulty of completion ratings, time on task, errors, and recommendations for improvements. A copy of the scenarios and questionnaires are included in the Attachments section.

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USABILITY TESTING

Sessions The test administrator contacted and recruited participants via telephone. They were hand selected based on past relationships, the participants expertise and/or involvement in collegiate basketball athlete recruitment. The test administrator sent e-mails to attendees informing them of the test logistics and requesting their availability and participation. Participants responded with an appropriate date and time.

DRAFT

Each individual session lasted approximately one hour. During the session, the test administrator explained the test session (Script – See Attachment A) and asked participants to read the task scenarios and try to find the information on the website. (See Attachment B).

After the last task was completed, the test administrator asked the participant to rate the website overall by using a 5-point Likert Scale (Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree) for three subjective measures: It was easy to find my way to this information from the homepage.

As I was searching for this information, I was able to keep track of where I was in the website.

I was able to accurately predict which section of the website contained this information.

(See Attachment C)

In addition, the test administrator asked the participants the following overall website questions: What the participant liked most.

What the participant liked least.

Recommendations for improvement.

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RECRUITMENT The recruiting criteria were that each individual had some knowledge or experience in the college recruitment process for student/athletes of high school age, including recruiters, coaches, parents and student/athletes.

Criteria included:

-

-

-

-

-

Men or women •Age varies according to each stakeholder Student athlete age is 16 -17 Parent age is “any” Coach age is “adult” Recruiter age is “adult” •Have internet access at home, work or on PDA and/or Smart phone •Have basketball experience as a player/coach/recruiter (except parents) •Are involved or interested in recruiting student/athletes for college scholarships

DRAFT

A survey sample size of at least five, which is a conventional choice according to Jakob Nielsen (Goodman, Kuniavsky and Moed, 2012), was used for a simple test.

An open ended general question in the usability Task Sheet was asked of each evaluator and then a serious of specific closed ended tasks were performed.

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RECRUITMENT

Participants Seven participants were scheduled over the testing dates. Seven of the seven participants completed the test. Of the seven participants, all were male.

• • • • • • •

Coach Tom Newell, Expert - http://hooptactics.com/page-1674788 Coach Ernie Woods, Expert - http://hooptactics.com/Ernie_Woods_Bio Rick Lewis, Recruiter - http://www.phenomhoopreport.com/about Eric Gardner, Recruiter - http://www.prephoops.com/author/prephoopseric/ Brennen Schofield, Student/Athlete Rick Schofield, Parent of Student/Athlete ND Kendrick, Recruiter AAU Director – www.Pocketcitybasketball.com

DRAFT

All participants were hand picked as the “right” group of people to use this type of site. All were associated in some strong way in experience in basketball and the recruiting of high school players into college.

Role in basketball recruitment process Participants selected their role in the basketball community from a general list. Roles included coach or former coach, scout or college recruiter, student athlete, and parent of student athlete. Some participants were, or have been, involved in multiple roles.

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TEST Evaluation Tasks/Scenarios Tests were created using a task list using a Google PDF example provided by Professor David E. Meyers. (See Attachment B)

Features Tested

DRAFT

Four screens were presented and the participants were asked to navigate the various screens attempting to duplicate the UX as if the site were “live” and not a working prototype. The tasks were reasonable, end goals described, specific (except for the initial task) doable, in a realistic sequence, domain neutral and in a reasonable length. Incentive provided was internal desire to assist in the success of the project. No other incentive was given or deemed necessary. When developers performed the same exercise, it took an average of 1:20 minutes to perform all tasks in the usability task. E xpected participant test time was 4:00 minutes. The Usability Test worksheet below shows the results. It should also be noted that in a preliminary test discussion with seasoned developer(s), it was decided that a “search” feature was not recommended on this site.

Test participants attempted completion of the following tasks (see Attachment D for complete test scenarios/tasks and each participant completed a self-directed task (e.g., finding information that each person wanted): • Navigate from home page to the stats page.

• Navigate from stats page to the media page.

• Select and watch a video.

• Navigate back to the home page.

• Navigate from home page to the contact page.

• Click on the email link.

• Navigate back to the home page

• Find a photograph.

• Navigate to the contact page.

• Find the student’s grade point average.

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TEST RESULTS Task Completion Success Rate

The test moderator gave the test to each participant.

All participants successfully completed Task 1 (navigate to the stats page). Seven of the seven (100%) completed Task 2 (navigate from the stats page to the media page), all participants completed Task 3 (select and watch a video), as well as Tasks 5,6, 8 and 10. Approximately three fourths (71.4%) of participants were able to complete Task 6 (Click on the email link) and 57% were able to complete Task 10 (find the student’s grade point average).

Task Ratings After

DRAFT

the completion of all tasks, participants rated the ease or difficult of completing the task for three factors: • It was easy to find information using this website.

• As I was searching for this information, I was able to keep track of where I was in the website.

• I was able to accurately predict which section of the website contained this information.

The 5-point rating scale ranged from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree). Agree ratings are the agree and strongly agree ratings combined with a mean agreement rating of > 4.0 considered as the user agrees that the information was easy to find, that they could keep track of their location and predict the section to find the information.

Ease in Finding Information, Keeping Track of Location in Site, Predicting Information Section [Describe the results for these rating variables with the numerical value of the mean rating for these tasks.)

All participants (100%) agreed it was easy to find student/athlete information (mean agreement rating = 4.7) and 100% found it easy to keep track of where they were in the website (mean agreement rating = 4.7) and 86% found it easy to find predict which section contained the information desired (mean agreement rating = 4.2). <Note - Given more time for this test, EACH variable might have been done separately by each TASK>.

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TEST RESULTS

Post-Task Overall Questionnaire All of the participants (100%) agreed (i.e., agree or strongly agree) that it was easy to find information using this website. Eighty-six percent agreed that they were able to keep track of where they were in the website.

One hundred percent were able to accurately predict which section of the website contained this information.

(See tables below.)

DRAFT

Mean Ratio = 4.71 100% Agree*

Mean Ratio = 4.0 86% Agree

Mean Ratio = 3.85 77% Agree

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TEST RESULTS

Likes, Dislikes, Participant Recommendations Upon completion of the tasks, participants provided feedback for what they liked most and least about the website, and recommendations for improving the website.

Liked Most The following comments capture what the participants liked most:

“This is a beautiful site!” “I like having all the player information in one place!” “Having these statistics and highlights are awesome.” “Nice dunk!”

Liked Least

DRAFT

The following comments capture what the participants liked the least:

“I wish you would link to my site.” “I don’t like the orange color.” “Can you separate the media area some?

Maybe divide them a little?”

Recommendations for Improvement

The following comments capture what the participants recommended: “Maybe make the GPA more prominent.”

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RECOMMENDATIONS This section provides recommended changes and justifications driven by the participant success rate, behaviors, and comments. Each recommendation includes a severity rating.

The following recommendations will improve the overall ease of use and address the areas where participants experienced problems or found the interface/information architecture unclear. Future testing would test the â&#x20AC;&#x153;liveâ&#x20AC;? website and see if there is a market for it.

DRAFT

Find Grade Point Average Information (Task 10) and Media Page (Task 3) Task 10 required participants to find grade point average of student and Task 3 asked them to watch a video. (See table below)

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DESIGN PROCESS

DRAFT

1. Research and Ideation

2. Persona and Task Analysis

6. Recommendations

4. Site Map 5. Concept & Design Validation Low & High frames

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3. Competitive Analysis

CONCLUSION As stated, the primary goal of the website is to assist student/athlete, Rilee Epley in securing an athletic scholarship Implementing the recommendations and continuing to work with users will ensure a continued user-centered website which recruiters and coaches should find easy to use.. The test results indicated that reiterating the availability of the student athlete’s GPA is advised. That can be easily corrected. Generating two additional sub categories in the navigation to include “AAU” and “High School” as subsets of “Stats” page is advised, as is inclusion of “Video” and “photograph” additional pages under “Media” page.

DRAFT

In general, all of the participants found www.RileeEpley.com prototype to be well organized, comprehensive, clean and uncluttered, very useful, and easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. Having a centralized site to find and/or propagate information is key to all of the participants. Implementing the recommendations and continuing to work with users will ensure a continued user-centered website. This may also serve as a pilot program to later market to other parents of student/athletes seeking the same goals.

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