Tabcorp

Tabcorp is an Australian wagering, gaming and Keno operator and one of the world’s largest publicly listed gaming companies.

My main responsibilities at Tabcorp were to overhaul the user experience and interface of the TAB apps (iOS and Android) and the responsive website.

The views in this case study are my own and do not represent Tabcorp or any of their brands.

Role: Product (UX/UI) Designer

Project: iOS, Android apps and website design

Year: 2017

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Overview.

When I started at Tabcorp they began the process of bringing the design and development teams in-house. Previously the work was outsourced to creative agencies in Sydney. The website and apps needed a complete overhaul to create a great user experience for the TAB customers and stay relevant in a competitive market. We also needed consistency across the iOS, Android and web platforms. Working with a great user experience, interface and development team we redesigned the whole iOS, Android and website experience from the ground up.

Tool Stack.

Process.

Tabcorp’s design process was something the team and I worked on very hard to get right. The design team and business knew the value of simple design and a great user experience. To make sure we covered all the techniques to get high-quality results we created a design and research framework based on the Double diamond of design. We researched and experimented with different design tasks and methods and then created a list of tasks a designer could choose from depending on what stage of a project they were in. The Diamond also became a valuable reference for the business to see where we were at in the design process.

Business Priorities.

To understand what the business needed we held regular meetings and presentations with them in the Sydney, Melbourne offices and online. By having clear streams of communications our design team could hear what features the business required to be released in order to stay up to date or ahead of the competition. As we quickly discovered the world of wagering is very competitive and moves very quickly.

Research.

During the TAB redesign, I undertook various types of research. This was done to understand how new features could work with the best practices and risks involved. An example is push notifications for apps were I conducted desktop research with academic papers and findings by reputable sources. I then created a deck and presented back to the design team and business.

Workshops.

As the project progressed we needed to run many workshops with stakeholders, customers and the design team. These workshops helped us validate ideas, flesh out concepts, critique designs and get buy-in from the business. Some of the design workshops I facilitated were based on the book Sprint by Google designer Jake Knapp and others on IDEO’s design kit. Each workshop was pre-constructed and thought out to achieve different outcomes.

Project Management.

When working on a large project like this we found that InVision was a great place to back up and store collaborative design files for the team to work off. For specific tasks, we sized them and then used Jira to assign to each design team member. Working using the Agile methodology we communicated daily via stand-ups, sprint planning sessions and retrospectives at the end of design sprints.

Wireframes & User Flows.

We sketched wireframes in sharpies and pencils on paper before moving onto simple digital versions made in Sketch. This was great to quickly create and discuss ideas with the team. Once we liked an idea we created clickable prototypes in InVision and tested with our users. If the idea worked I would then take it to the UI design stage. The User flows were important to show all the touch points on a particular feature journey.

Prototyping & Usability testing.

At TAB we user tested every single design before it was released. To validate design we created clickable prototypes and tested them with our user base that we engaged through our TAB community and recruitment companies. InVision was our main prototyping tool and we were able to quickly upload Sketch designs into it and link them together to test with users on desktop or mobile devices. For some situations, we used Principle for Mac and Axure to create the prototypes. Before testing, we would script out questions and scenarios for the customers to answer and complete. We recorded the sessions and kept them for further reference. Once the weekly testing was complete the researcher would collate findings look for patterns and present back to the design team who would then choose to update designs based on the feedback.

Interface Design.

To begin with, we created the style guides of the apps and websites. This contained our colours, icon styles, grid structure, simple illustrations and typography. This document was essential to maintain consistency across all the platforms. As the apps were native we followed both Material and iOS design guidelines for them. The UI design tool was Sketch and we made great use of the Craft plugin and InVision integration to create quick prototypes for testing.We also made use of symbols, components and styles that Sketch offers to speed up our workflows.

Data Analytics.

Analytics plays a crucial role in the UX designers job. During the project, we worked with developers to make sure all the apps and website were tagged with Google Tag Manager and set up to work with Google Analytics. We regularly checked the dashboards and created custom funnels to see what our user/customers were doing. Based on what we learnt we could then make design decisions. For example, people were choosing Basketball and it was located below to fold we moved it above the fold into a prime position and this, in turn, created more Basketball bet conversions.

Feedback.

Since releasing the new TAB apps and website the digital side of the Tabcorp witnessed a 24% increase in annual profit this number was heavily influenced by our new designs and user experience. Customers are now more engaged than ever with our digital products and the company was receiving great feedback. App store ratings increased from 2.5 to 4.5 star.