Designing a Scholastic Sports Communication App for Fast Adoption
Aktivate mobile communication app
Project Details
Client
Aktivate
Team
Myself; engineering team of six
Role
In-house Product Designer
Methodology
Product Discovery (Competitive Analysis, Stakeholder interviews, Affinity-diagramming, Journey Mapping), Branding, UX/UI Design, Usability testing
Timeline
2021-2023
The Problem
The existing Aktivate web platform handled school sports registration and compliance, but had no mobile-friendly way for coaches, parents, and students to manage those tasks. In addition, teams were using various third-party apps to communicate, with no consistency or connection between them. Aktivate wanted to close both gap with a new mobile app. The app needed to demonstrate fast adoption and a path to monetization, which meant prioritizing core communication features first, at the expense of other needs research had already flagged as critical for usage, such as Spanish language support, emergency contacts, and registration status.
Ironically, the fastest path to adoption ran straight through the features that had been deprioritized to get there.
What I did
As the sole product designer and interim PM on the mobile app, I ran continuous research and testing, using what I learned to advocate for user needs within business priorities. Across five release cycles, I designed the interface and flows for new features, working cross-functionally with engineering and go-to-market teams to bring each release to life.
Key Findings and What Changed
These findings were identified as major obstacles throughout the mobile app build process and were addressed accordingly.
Spanish language support was non-negotiable.
The scale of the need wasn't fully apparent until post-beta expansion. Many schools had large Spanish-speaking populations for whom the app was immediately inaccessible.
Auto-translation was implemented based on the user's phone presets, with the ability to add additional languages in the future languages.
Lack of emergency contacts was a safety gap.
Coaching staff needed immediate access to a guardian contact for each athlete during games or practice emergencies.
Emergency contacts were tied to each athlete's profile and linked to their verified guardian.
Registration status connected the legacy platform and the new mobile app.
Before sports could hold tryouts or build a team, students needed to be properly registered to play. Coaches have to chase students down and check the desktop platform to see who is eligible.
In-app registration status with real-time updates allows coaching staff to see who is eligible for tryouts and to be placed on a team.
Parents wouldn't check the app without prompting
Without a notification, parents said they'd forget the app existed. Some responded to email more reliably than push notifications.
Both push and email notifications were prioritized on the roadmap to keep teams engaged.
Coaches wanted to broadcast to teams without noise .
Coaches need to share reminders and announcements to students and parents without them replying back and burying the posts.
A one-to-many announcement channel for coaching staff was implemented to address this need.
Multi-audience stakeholder communication carried compliance risk.
Peer bullying and inappropriate communication between adults-to-minors became more urgent to address after real situations emerged during beta.
Tiered coaching permissions, content flagging, and Athletic Director-level communication logs were added.
Impact
The outcome wasn't just the growth in adoption, it was what the process revealed about what happens when business priorities and user needs get out of sync.
Adoption accelerated as later cycles closed the gaps that research flagged early on. Spanish language support, registration visibility, and emergency contacts rounded out the feature set and removed the barriers that had kept the app inaccessible or incomplete for entire groups of users.
Connect Mobile App GROWTH:
30 to 300+
teams and clubs using the app within one year
1,000+
users across coaches, students, and parents after two years