Live Sports Betting UX: A Redesign of bet365 in-play mobile app

A few months ago, I did a side project on analysing the user experience of sports betting app bet365. I wanted to take on a project that was completely into a new space for me. bet365 mobile app seemed like an interesting space as a lot of people use it and I didn’t find many UX blogs or design ideas into this space. This was a great learning exercise for me. I am curious to know what people think about the redesign.

Predispositions

• Most of the professionals into betting are money minded. They care about the ‘odds’ the most.
• Professionals have a clarity about what they are exactly looking for.
• People interested in betting come from diverse background. They may or may not have the basic knowledge of betting.
• While betting, losing the money is the biggest fear.
• People feel comfortable when they find others with similar interest around them.

Research

To get a better understanding of the problems faced by people in betting in general and in using the betting apps, I conducted exploratory research which included interviews, observations and competitive analysis.

Interviews & Observation: I started my research by interviewing Michael Patton and Yuanhang She.

While Michael has placed bets in soccer many a times, Yuanhang had placed bet once and is new to sports betting.

As part of the interview, I also asked each of them to place a bet using bet365.com to see how comfortable/uncomfortable they were using the current app.

                                               Yuanhang She (Left), Michael Patton (Right)

“Sports Betting is fun. I am interested but I think I don’t understand the basics ..Umm.. There are a lot of numbers. You need to be a Pro to understand those.”

— Yuanhang She

“When I decide to bet, I want to quickly get to the league I plan to bet for. It is just that league, and the odds that I care for.”

— Michael Patton

I also conducted a remote interview with one of my friend, Chinmay Dhala. Chinmay does not use betting apps but prefers to do betting when he is with his friends. As part of the interview I also asked him to place a bet using bet365.com to see how different his experience is when using an app.

“Betting with friends is always exciting for me. I don’t usually place bets through the apps but I do when I go with my friends to Las Vegas. Sometimes just because my friends are betting, I decide to place the bet.”

— Chinmay Dhala

Problem Exploration

With all the information from the interviews I listed down some “How Might We” questions to dig deeper into the problems. I then listed down the problems from those questions and started finding links and roots of these problems.

                                                                                How might we exercise

                                                                                  Understanding the problems

Insights

I also looked at various betting apps available to see what they offer to the users and how.

Most of the apps looked similar in terms of the information they presented to the users but one of the thing that stood out to me was the need of simplifying the information and the lack of excitement factor while betting even with the inclusion of gamification of the odds. The main insights I gathered from my research were:

• There is a need to minimize the amount of information presented to the users.
• New users feel overwhelmed as they do not understand the terminologies used.
• Users get excited to place bets when they are with a crowd of people.

Design Goals

I listed down the challenges and how my design could address those.

The Design

Design Rationale

In-Play Soccer Screen

When user opens a game under In-Play, the screen shown here would be displayed. The goal here was to show only the information that a user requires when coming to this page. Also leaving white spaces improve the clarity of the information.

From my research I found that the odds were something that users cared the most. At the same time the “crowd” also influenced users in participating in betting. The goal here was to excite users about betting and attract them towards more leagues to place more bets. I tried to achieve this by showing the number of people currently watching a league.

Teams Screen

From my research I found that the most popular betting among the users was full match betting. If they had to place more bets, they would go to the Live match and explore.

So, the goal here was to simplify the information. I added the “Quick Bet” button using which users can instantly place the full match bet without having to open the live match page.

During the interviews, users expressed that they were unclear what the variables and numbers 1, X, 2 meant. They also expressed that the only thing they could see were numbers. Michael and Chinmay also had difficulties understanding the odds. My goal here was to improve that experience by using a user-friendly language and minimize the information on the page.

Live Match Screen

During interview, Michael expressed that he is either interested in the full match bet or the half match bet. I wanted to categorize these bets based on the match specifics. The goal here was to provide instant access to the bets users are interested in. Also, I wanted to use easy terms to define the bets. Chinmay, Michael and Yuanhang did not use or understand many bets listed on the current bet365 app.

From my research I also found that there were many bets which required the users to remain updated about the scores of the match. Watching the match live, and also keeping track of the scores is a simultaneous process. In live match betting, where there are time constraints, there is a need for the user to get the scores instantly. So, I wanted to make that task easy. So, I placed the scoreboard right below the live match and above the bets.

This design gave me some good knowledge about this space. If you are using any sports betting app and have any ideas or feedback for me to share please do share. I would love to hear from you. Thank you for reading!