Atlanta Youth Rugby

Project Overview

Improve the presentation of information to reach a wider, diverse audience

Atlanta Youth Rugby (“AYR”) is dedicated to promoting and developing youth rugby in the Atlanta, Georgia area for all children, including those who have been historically and systematically excluded from the sport. The league currently comprises over 3,000 boys and girls aged 8 to 18 years old. AYR focuses on fostering character development, sportsmanship, teamwork, equitable access to rugby programs, and athletic skill development, hoping to maximize the collective impact on Atlanta’s youth.

AYR needs us to improve the presentation of information on their website to reach a wider, diverse audience, thus attracting the interest of potential sponsors/donors, parents eager to enroll their children in leagues, and a broader community motivated to participate in rugby activities. These stakeholders make up ⅔ of AYR’s revenue, so functionality greatly impacts AYR’s profits and potential for growth.

Major Results

• 3.6 clicks/second reduction in making a donation

• 12-second reduction in finding a competitive team

• 16.6-second reduction on exploring sponsorship packages

Understanding the Problem

AYR’s website primarily serves three distinct groups of users, each with its own goals, tasks, and desired outcomes when visiting the site.

1. People New To Rugby

   • Goal: Discover information about the sport and organization, explore upcoming events, and sign up for a league.

2. Rugby Parents

   • Goal: Quickly access details about their child’s club and complete registrations for events or leagues.

3. Potential Funders

   • Goal: Gain insight into how donations support AYR’s mission and explore opportunities to become a sponsor.

Project Goals were then identified

1. Highlight the physical and social benefits of rugby to encourage affiliates to donate and motivate parents to register their children for leagues.

2. Boost user engagement and improve retention by incorporating interactive media.

3. Improve the user flow from the homepage to other sections, making it easier for visitors to navigate the site and access the organization’s wide range of resources efficiently.

User Research

Heuristic Evaluation

Using Nielsen Norman Group’s UX design principles, heuristic evaluations reveal major usability issues without the need for extra time or resources for participant testing. This method enabled me to identify common problems related to consistency, design, flexibility, and efficiency, directly supporting the research goals of enhancing usability, preventing errors, and minimizing user frustration.

Comparative Analysis

Through comparative analysis of national and international youth rugby leagues, I examined how key content—events, safety, registration, and sponsorships—is communicated. This inspired design ideas such as a card-style calendar, tiered sponsorship packages, and clear safety information.

User Interviews

To collect direct user feedback, I conducted remote Zoom interviews using a scripted set of questions, tasks, and follow-ups tailored to each user group. The results were synthesized through affinity diagramming, which revealed key themes and insights.

1. Visual Design: Users pointed out visual inconsistencies across pages that disrupted the overall experience.

2. League Participation Drivers: Key considerations included time investment, skill level, sense of community, personal identity, and physical benefits.

3. Content Gaps: Participants expressed a need for clearer information on rugby rules, necessary equipment, and how the sport differs from others.

4. Program Clarity: Users sought more structured, easily accessible details about programs and teams.

5. Safety Information: While the emphasis on safety was appreciated, participants felt the details provided were incomplete.

Personas

Drawing from the research insights, I developed user personas to inform the design process. These personas served as a tool for building empathy and ensuring that solutions remained aligned with users’ goals and challenges throughout development and prototyping.

• Primary Persona: A parent seeking to register their child for a sports league.

• Secondary Persona 1: An AYR coach aiming to highlight their team’s values.

• Secondary Persona 2: A potential donor interested in making a positive impact on the community.

Journey Mapping

Based on previous research, journey mapping was conducted to capture key steps, emotions, expectations, and pain points, revealing opportunities to improve the site based on user sentiment throughout the process.

UX Requirements

After synthesizing insights from the user research phase, I defined a clear set of UX requirements to guide the website’s design. These requirements not only ensured the product would meet user needs but also demonstrated to the client how their business goals could be translated into user-centered design decisions, prioritized according to research findings.

Design Phase

Sketches

To kick off the design process, I sketched out ideas for rapid iteration, drawing inspiration from platforms like Behance and Dribbble as well as user research data to explore diverse solutions without bias or the constraints of high-fidelity design. Sketches include a sponsorship page with clear package distinctions, a card-style “How to Play,” and a Programs Search with filtering options.

User Flow Diagrams

I translated sketches into user flows that detailed navigation for key tasks, such as registration and donations, ensuring alignment with UX requirements, refining the site structure, and securing client agreement on the design direction.

Mid-Fidelity Designs

I translated the sketches into Figma to create an interactive mid-fidelity prototype, focusing on content placement and core functionality. Some of them include:

• Rugby Basics Cards - Allows for quick scanning

• Competitive Programs Filtering - Filtering to sort through different teams/programs

• Sponsorship Packages Page - Users can compare packages efficiently

Usability Testing

Usability testing involved six participants — three prior interviewees and three new to rugby. Results include the following:

• Tiered Sponsorship Groups: Participants struggled to see sponsorship packages as cohesive sets of benefits and found the comparison table difficult to use due to excessive scrolling.

• Navigation Clarity: Usability testing showed that participants often became disoriented while moving between pages. This suggests an opportunity to improve navigation through clearer, more descriptive headers.

Design Iterations

Designs were changed based on user testing and feedback.

Evaluation

A/B Testing

After mixed feedback from testing and reviews, I ran A/B testing to gather quantitative data. Participants completed tasks on both the current site and the prototype, with completion time and clicks recorded for comparison. Below are some of the tasks

Final Designs and Considerations

Wireframes

Interactive Prototype

Final UX Specifications

Client Communications Summary

• Held 17 weekly meetings with AYR’s Director of Operations and Marketing Director to maintain alignment and keep the project on track.

• Prepared detailed agendas for each meeting, outlining action items for both teams.

• Delivered completed work (e.g., personas, low-fidelity designs) and provided progress updates using a Gantt chart.

• Gathered essential website content, including:

  • Media assets

  • Partnership details

  • League offerings

  • Safety program information

• Ensured consistent collaboration, preventing gaps in knowledge about AYR’s operations.

• Provided the client with visibility into how UX research and design methods shaped decisions.

• Built stakeholder confidence that every design choice was backed by data.

• Enabled stakeholders to:

  • Provide direct feedback

  • Request immediate changes

  • Ask questions to keep business requirements central to the design.

Final Design Implementation Summary

• Since the final design was implemented on AYR’s website, I created a shared Google Drive folder as a centralized repository for all design resources.

• The repository included:

  • HTML and CSS code for competitive programs filtering

  • Figma file for sponsorship package visualization

  • Custom media assets designed in Canva

• Provided step-by-step instructions for:

  • Accessing and navigating the folder

  • Making edits to design files and code

  • Uploading updates to Squarespace (the hosting platform)

• Ensured that non-technical team members could confidently maintain and update the site.

Project Planning Report here.

Research and Requirements here.

Design Report here.

Evaluation and Final UX Specifications here.

Final Report here.

Website here.

For more work inquiries, or to grab a coffee do email me at abiahmed@umich.edu

Thank you for reading!📚