DraftKings Sportsbook App
In May of 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned PASPA, an act signed into law in 1992 that federally banned all sports betting in the country. Because of this reversal, a new industry for the country sprang into action. However, six months before that, my team and I had already begun designing what a sports betting app would look like, and fortunately, we were able to see that all the way to launch.
When DraftKings Sportsbook launched, it turned the company into a multi-product operation that brought new user challenges and needs. Now we had a whole new type of experience and game for both existing and new users of DraftKings to come check out and enjoy.
But a lot of work led up to that launch as there was no clear road paved for this type of product or industry in this country. It was truly the Wild West.
DESIGN LEAD
To begin understanding this product, we had to direct our attention across the ocean and look at the product behemoths in the UK and Europe. There the culture of placing bets online was well-established for years. It was as common as mailing a letter or picking up groceries from the store.
STRATEGY
Scoping out the competition
So to create a clear starting point for our team, we needed to understand the basics. What were the standard functions, interfaces, and flows that supported users placing bets on their games? We quickly found most of the products were very utilitarian. Get in, place your bet, and get out, with the hope later you maybe won. However, one of DraftKings core pillars is bringing the fan closer to the game and having our products be another layer on their watch experience. So we knew with our Sportsbook we wanted to get users in and keep them engaged.
Low fidelity wireframes
High fidelity designs
Designing the app
As mentioned, betting on sports online was a new experience for the American audience, as majorities of our users didn't have a bookie a text away. So our main goal was to have new users successfully place a bet on their first visit.
PROBLEM
Educating new users
We presented this tutorial to every registering user; whether you were a professional or a first-timer, we wanted users to start learning the basics. We learned from our Daily Fantasy product the more knowledgeable you are with a game, the longer you will engage and more likely to return. People don't generally like to lose, especially if they feel like they are making dumb decisions.
Onboarding flow
Using conversational language
Understanding sports betting was almost like learning a new language. We had to incorporate a dictionary of new terms and phrases into our experience, and we needed to speak to familiar and unfamiliar players. So for this problem, we focused on the microcopy itself. We wanted the user to feel like they were having a friendly chat with their buddies. We phrased our betting offers in the form of questions. Simple prompts that your most novice player could understand. Furthermore, we wanted to continue educating our users, so we also associated the prompts with the traditional type of offer or market name it was known as.
We learned a lot in year one of Sportsbook. We found high engagement with our onboarding and tutorials, especially from those users who had never played our other Daily Fantasy product. Our hypothesis being they were even less familiar with wagering on any type of game. In 2020 a new update to the sportsbook UI was launched and reduced the amount of conversational language. The population of bettors was becoming wiser and more familiar, and there was a bigger demand for a more complex product.