Case Study
Designing a more interactive, personalized sports experience.
Greysports is a mobile app concept designed for highly engaged sports fans who want more than just scores. While existing sports platforms prioritize information delivery, Greysports explores how personalization and community can coexist with live sports consumption.
Our goal was to design an experience that makes it easy to watch games, discover content, and engage with other fans without overwhelming the user.
Most mainstream sports apps do two things well: displaying live scores and delivering news/highlights.
However, content and conversation are usually separated. Fans switch between apps, watching in one place and discussing in another.
Opportunity: Create one unified experience where live content and community interaction feel seamlessly connected.
We introduced a Continue as Guest option so users can explore before creating an account. This reduces first-launch abandonment and builds trust before requesting data.
Intentional CTA Labeling
Instead of generic “Next” buttons, we labeled each action by what comes next: Next: Personalization and Next: Get Started.
Onboarding is where users decide if the app feels intuitive or overwhelming. Directional labels make the flow feel guided, not procedural, and while explicit step-labeling is most commonly associated with longer onboarding flows, we chose to apply it here to reinforce clarity and reduce uncertainty from the first interaction.
We explored multiple navigation bar structures before landing on the final layout.
Challenge: Greysports includes live viewing, teams, community, profile, and settings. Too many equal-weight destinations increase cognitive load.
Final approach: Clear icon hierarchy, consistent spacing/weight, and stronger active-state treatment for fast recognition.
The result improves scannability, supports thumb reach, and keeps feature density manageable.
Initial state: Live games were stacked vertically and competed with the rest of the page.
Problem: Layout felt heavy, hierarchy weakened, and secondary content was pushed too far down.
Final decision: Move live games into a horizontal scroll module at the top to feature live content first while preserving vertical space for discovery.
We redesigned the primary action button as full-width to strengthen emphasis and reduce hesitation.
In sports interfaces, clarity beats subtlety.
During exploration, we tested white background cards behind each post for stronger separation. We ultimately preferred the more seamless background for the final experience.
Why white cards were not final: They felt heavier, segmented content, and added unnecessary layering.
Why final approach works: Lighter flow, stronger continuity, better visual breathing room for sports imagery, and faster scanning via spacing/typography/subtle dividers, an approach adopted by many top-level designers.
We explored grouped sections, but grouped options reduced interaction clarity and made rows feel less tappable.
Final decision: Each settings option sits inside its own white container.
Settings is task-based; usability takes priority over visual minimalism.
A high-level mock-up presentation of Greysports screens.
We designed Greysports around one core hypothesis: if live content and community interaction are integrated into one personalized interface, fan engagement time will increase compared to score-only consumption apps.
One major challenge was balancing feature density with clarity. Sports products are information-heavy by nature, and adding community features can increase cognitive load.
Iterating on navigation and layout hierarchy showed us that reducing visual noise is often more impactful than adding more functionality.
Another key learning: not every screen needs innovation. Strategic familiarity, especially in Settings, builds trust and usability.
The next phase would move from concept validation to behavioral optimization.
