Football, where helping others wins

Designing the MVP of a social football app built on Pep Guardiola’s philosophy: success comes from helping others achieve their best.

ROLE

UX lead, MVP

TEAM

1 UI designer, 1 PM, ~5 developers

TIMELINE

2023

READ TIME

4 min read

CONSTRAINTS

Brand-new product

Fixed launch timeline

Scope agreed with developers

A coach’s philosophy as the brief

CHALLENGE

Football fans have little time, content that doesn’t match their interests and no real way to connect. Pass To Win had to make helping others rewarding without becoming another feed.

SOLUTION

A scoped MVP (home, spaces, community feed and public profiles), mapped end to end with the PM and developers, then tested with fans.

IMPACT

A tested, prioritised MVP: 5 changes from usability testing, scoped with developers and ready for build. Immortal closed before release.

How it came together

From three beliefs to a tested MVP

CHAPTER 01

What we believed

Three beliefs behind the product: collaboration drives success, recognition motivates contribution, and a positive community attracts growth. I took them into five interviews with football fans.

🚀 Collaboration drives success.

People achieve their best when they support each other rather than compete individually.

🥇 Recognition motivates contribution.

Users engage and help more when their positive actions are acknowledged and rewarded.

🌱 A positive community attracts growth.

A supportive environment naturally attracts more users and a culture of mutual learning.

CHAPTER 02

What we scoped

With the PM and developers: home, spaces, the community feed and public profiles for launch. Games and rankings stayed in the sitemap for version two.

CHAPTER 03

What we built

The whole journey in greyscale, from sign-up and onboarding to home, spaces and profiles, agreed with developers before any visual design.

CHAPTER 04

What changed

Usability testing turned up five changes. I scoped them with the developers, and these four made the biggest difference to how the app works:

Solution ↘The most relevant content at a glance: the confusing “All” tab became Home and Feed.Live videos, your spaces and upcoming events — all on one screen.

Solution ↘Onboarding cut to the minimum. Preferences now shape the spaces tab.Preferences set during onboarding shape what users see in the spaces tab.

Solution ↘A community feed people can filter.Users filter community posts in the feed and interact with other fans.

Solution ↘A public profile, so the community becomes more vocal.Users share as much as they wish and connect with others, so the community becomes more vocal.