Hone Golf (iOS App)

Overview

4 Month Contract

Hone’s founder brought the UX team highly conceptual ideas and designs of a golf networking mobile app. We were tasked with completing end-to-end product design based on previous research. It became clear early-on that further user and market research was needed to validate the product before being built. This resulted into key insights that pivoted our focus to coordination features within the network.

Methods

User Interviews
Screener Survey
Competitor/Comparator Analysis
Persona Development
Design Studio
Sketching
Wireframes
Usability Testing

Tools

Figma
Google Suite
Useberry
Miro
Zoom
Google Meet

My Roles

UX Researcher
UX Designer
UI Designer

Team

Brian (Founder/PM)
Rachel (UX/UI)
Maria (Research)

Prior Ideas and Research

The founder had features fleshed out in hi-fi from his golf experiences and his survey participants feedback. He saw an app that included user-generated content (images, events, live stream) and the ability to connect and communicate with other golfers, professionals, and businesses.

Upon further review, the research backing these ideas had issues.

 

Unconscious Bias

A golfer himself, the founder based a lot of the apps ideas on his own experiences and unstructured conversations

Survey Issues

Previous research survey asked participants what features they wanted, instead of asking questions about their problems related to golf

Broad Focus

Original focus included players, clubs, golf professionals via Golf Networking in iOS App, In-Person Events and Physical Retail

New Research and Focus

We successfully advocated for further research, to ensure we solved for the right problem:

  • Competitor Analysis of Tee Time, Tournament, Score/Stat Keeper, and Golf Networking sites/apps

  • User Interviews with Golfers, Private Club Golfers, and Golf Pros

User Interview sorting

New Research Insights

  • Several methods of planning where, when, who to play

  • Culture of exclusivity

  • Means of networking for personal and business relationships

  • GPS Trackers, Performance Features, etc were heavily covered by competitors

  • Communication was an opportunity

Narrowing Focus: Personas

To help narrow our focus for who we were solving for, 2 personas emerged from our research and user interviews:

  • Phil: Avid Golfer that belong to country clubs for business and leisure

  • Chase: Former Competitive Golfer that had access to but didn’t need to belong to country clubs

 

How might we help golfers communicate better with other golfers, within or outside their existing networks?

Solution with Constraints

We had our aha! moment. Integrated polls would solve the users problem but it would require more work than our MVP budget would allow. Our main feature needed to be pushed to Phase II.

Compromise and Ship

While we had to push a main feature, we were able to make a beautiful app that added several other features to help our users communicate and network including:

  • Connections

  • Group Chat

  • Events

Next Steps

Handoff

The project concluded with the final handoff of the Product Requirements Documentation (PRD) to the development team

Expand User Research

Expand user research into additional target audience of golf professionals, influencers and businesses

Expand Design System

Continue to build out design system around branding, content, components, interactions

KPI’s

Determine KPIs and acceptance criteria

Review Scope Post-MVP

Review and scope long-term / post-MVP objectives (Android, calendar integration, subscription model, ACH transfers)

Quotes

“I can’t think of a golf app does anything like this; super useful.”

— Mike L., User 

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