Rob Delvecchio

With DFS (Daily Fantasy) benchmark research and user interview sessions conducted by the UXR team around the lobby experience, we heard a recurring theme across our platforms - users felt overwhelmed.

Contest entry points were crammed together. There were endless scrolls of redundant information (both horizontally and vertically) and little to no hierarchy to direct them on where to go. We were losing users who would land on the lobby and then bounce right out, unsure of what to do next.

Collaborating closely with the Product and Analytics teams, our first step was to perform an audit on the existing DFS lobby and assess which components were redundant or not helpful to our users and prioritize changes for the areas that were ripe for improvement. This involved kick-offs with all stakeholder groups to gather feedback, create alignment, and build a path forward that could meet the expectations of each group.

I contributed to and led the design team through early, low-fi, explorations of possible solutions, taking into consideration the foundational research from the UX team, the analytics that came through during our kickoff meetings, stakeholder requirements and general feedback, as well as overall product strategy. The goal was to get to initial concepts that we could discuss with engineering to understand LOE and feasibility, before refining the designs to a place where we could test them with users.

With further exploration, we started to identify core components and areas we wanted to feature on the new simplified lobby, digging into the design for each and presenting a range of UX options.

To get a read on which components were moving in the right direction, I facilitated a design workshop so we could collaborate with key stakeholders from different areas of expertise (marketing, product, eng, design, research), giving them each a palette to build out their ideal experience using our predesigned components. This helped us gather a) some initial internal user testing on which options individuals gravitated towards b) steer from the key stakeholders about which elements were hitting the mark vs which ones were not and c) a forum for everyone to have their voice heard an contribute positively towards the project.

After honing in on and narrowing the UX options for each component, the team built prototypes we could put in front of users. I created a usability comparison study in UserTesting, and we ran it with a handful of beginner, intermediate, and expert DFS users to see if we were providing an easier-to-navigate lobby, and hitting on the other key areas we were targeting for improvement.

We iterated on the lobby designs through two rounds of usability testing and stakeholder reviews before developing the designs for a fall launch and experiment. I led the planning, roadmap and rollout of the different design elements, working closely with product and engineering to determine requirements, maintain design standards, and manage fixes as they popped up.

Once the new lobby was launched to a subset of users, we gathered additional information by measuring KPIs and through a Qualtrics in-app survey. We hit all key metrics, heard overwhelmingly positive feedback on the designs, and sucessfully rolled the lobby out to 100% of our users at the start of 2023.

The original DFS welcome screen landed the user on one screen with very little context regarding what they could experience signing up for FanDuel. It relied heavily on outside marketing and the app store imagery/language to convey the value prop, but this led to a significant drop off between downloads and completed signups.

We sought to provide the proper context setting for the user, letting them know that they were on the FanDuel Fantasy platform and also that they could engage with us in a variety of ways.

In collaboration with the product, content design, and ux research teams, we distilled the core areas of the experience we wanted to focus on - winning big, value of the FanDuel group, social opportunities, and breadth of offerings.

Our first step was to concept test the messaging and copy through UserTesting to land on a style that best captured the users attention.

Once we landed on the user-preferred language style for the messaging of the key value props, we tested them against a varying set of visuals. This allowed us to narrow down the options to the screens that would provide the highest level of excitement and interest to close the gap between downloads and sign-ups.

The users preferred Option B at a 9:1 clip.

We put together several low fidelity wireframes, exploring ways to tie our Sportsbook, Fantasy and Casino platforms into one space, while leveraging content and relevant data to provide the user with a personalized experience.

As our designs were narrowed, the team keyed in a few core areas that could provide the best experience moving forward - a flexible framework (allowing us to provide the right content at the right time to our users - think…education content for new users, advanced research content for experienced), personalization (knowing what content resonates with our users), tentpole/trending events (so our users could celebrate the big moments) and live tracking (as a central source of all their FanDuel entries/wagers).

After presenting low-fidelity wireframes and prototypes to the broader design and product teams, there was buy-in to build a team around executing the idea. That group used our direction as a jumping-off point to get to an MVP concept being built for the FanDuel Sportsbook platform.

With a post-launch market fit, a growing user base, and critical success in the iOS App Store, the business required additional features to increase engagement and encourage adoption. In order to be more adaptable to these product needs, we explored implementing a cohesive, comprehensive design system.

By choosing to rebuild the bones of the app from the ground up (including visuals and new back end architecture), we’d be able to establish a strong foundation of design, brand identity, user experience, and code structure to build upon moving forward.

Features included: a social media feed for sharing media and status updates, a calendar for scheduling games, practices and events, a chat client for immediate one-on-one and group communications, and a folder system for storing and distributing documents.

These visual explorations and changes not only allowed us to improve upon what was already a great experience for the user but also positioned us well to continue to meet the business requirements of growing our key metrics across the board.

The initial onboarding flow in our MVP candidate was a basic form fill that matched what was implemented on our web platform. Once in market and equipped with this feedback from our initial user base, we sought to redefine the experience.

Our focus was to introduce another method of signing up via phone number/SMS. But we also sought to make the onboarding experience more fruitful by allowing users an opportunity to be immediately joined to their team/group. We played with a number of styles and layouts and put design prototypes in front of real users.

The result was a streamlined experience that guided users through a conversational flow, rather than a wall of forms.

We saw an immediate increase in signups with the introduction of the phone number/SMS signup flow. It also helped fill a void we were seeing with confirmed users who were failing to join their intended teams/groups after completing the sign-up process and falling off the product. The design direction also helped move the needle on our overall brand style and pushed us towards new horizons.

The revamped design got us closer to where we wanted to be, but there were still functional issues we were running into.

Having introduced a full-width button in this iteration that was locked to the keyboard, we repeatedly ran into development issues that caused bugs on different devices. Also, the new input style we introduced didn’t translate to other areas inside the product. There was also room for us to give even more context on the splash screens.

Our current iteration, from the latest redesign, provides the same seamless experience.

More context has been added to the splash screens, giving the user an opportunity to learn more about our product without having to move through the signup process. While we kept the conversational flow that guided the user through the process, we also restyled the inputs to be fields again. This was more adaptable across the entirety of the app, and helped provide more bearing for the user as they traversed the flow.

When sportsYou entered the market, it featured all the core productivity elements needed to be effective in its vertical - scheduling, messaging, posting, media sharing, file storing.

Over the course of the next several months, I led the design, UX, and implementation of two specific features to help solve a user engagement problem - Color Text Posts and Polls.

This addition - which is common among other platforms in our space - was a gap in our product. By discussing the needs of our users with them directly, and researching the UX of this feature on those other platforms, we were able to deliver an experience that increased engagement and also provided yet another successful way for team/group communication on sportsYou.

In order to liven up the feed beyond the media being shared to it, we explored adding color to regular text posts. We prototyped ways to make the type more impactful, how colors would change our post cards themselves, and what colors might be more beneficial to our user base. The final result was the introduction of Color Text Posts - a feature that provided our users with large, bold type in the feeds on a backdrop of 9 distinct color options.

YP, The Real Yellow Pages, was hosting a brand activation at Advertising Week and needed an interactive experience that connected with potential clients.

The goal was to help explain their product offerings to potential local/national businesses in a way that was engaging and interactive, yet also spoke to YP’s expertise of the online shopping consumer journey.

The game board, which represented the complexity of the consumer journey, had multiple pathways for the user to traverse.

They were served questions based on their online shopping habits, specific to recommendations, search inquiries, brand loyalty etc. Their answers would dictate how they traveled to their next turn.

They were served questions based on their online shopping habits, specific to recommendations, search inquiries, brand loyalty etc. Their answers would dictate how they traveled to their next turn.

In order to tie the questions back to YP product offerings, there were facts and talking points placed in between.

This allowed the user to see YP’s expertise in the space and how their offerings might benefit their own business. It also gave reps a talking point to kick off any potential sales pitches.

When their journey through the game was complete, their answers were scored against a predetermined list of personas.

These personas placed them into one of three categories, which was then used to provide them with leave-behinds providing a customized business offer and a branded pin that increased YP’s brand awareness.