World Confederation of Billiards Sports — WCBS
Billiards is one of the most played sports in the world. This is a story of how we helped WCBS gain more exposure and popularity; ultimately Billiards will be included in the Olympic Games.
The IOC now allows the organizing committees to propose new events, in order to attract the youth. There were 4 new games making their debut in the Tokyo Games — karate, skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing. Another new sport, breaking, is also included in the 2024 Paris Games.
At the beginning of 2021, WCBS approached us and asked for a new brand identity and a new website, as part of their plan pitching for 2028 Olympic Games participation.
My Role
I was part of the design sprint in both branding and website design. For the website design, I participated in the research and ideation phases. with the help of the Design Lead and the Digital Lead, I took ownership of the design part, including sketches, information architecture, wireframing, UI design, prototyping, and user testing. I was also responsible to pitch and present design solutions to the client.
Timelines
Feb. 2021 - July 2021
Skills
Persona, Information Architecture, Wire-framing, UI Design, Prototyping, User Testing
Team
Austin Lee, Design Lead
Trevor Lewis, Digital Lead
Jamili Abraham, Copy Writer
Challenge & Goals
Founded in 1992, WCBS has been pursuing inclusion in the Olympic Games. To reach this goal, WCBS approached us with these 3 primary goals for this website project:
need a refreshed brand positioning and brand visuals.
show that WCBS is the ultimate authority for all cue sports, representing the three main disciplines.
gain public exposure and interest in billiards sports.
The Discovery
What is billiards? Its background, history and the social conception?
Lacking the general acknowledgment of billiard sports, I started it by researching and learning about billiards, such as their history, popularity, and rules of the game.
Here are some of the discoveries:
Historical stigma about billiard
There was a stigma around pool and billiard halls during the early and mid 20th century, suggesting they were seedy places associated with alcohol, fighting, and gambling.
Less accessible to the public, especially to the youth
Not that many people know about billiards, especially kids and young people because billiards are not easily accessible to them. It’s not teaching in school and most pool halls only allow people over 21-year-old to get in.
Male dominant sports
It’s still a male-dominated sport, even though the scales are moving towards equality. According to one estimate, there are only 40% of billiard participants are female in the US.
What are the internal and external perceptions about WCBS?
My other teammates conducted interviews and surveys with people from the client’s side to determine the top challenges and opportunities regarding the confederation brand.
What do the targeted audiences need?
Besides professional players, the client wanted to target “young people and women in particular.” Therefore, I created 2 personas — young female amateur and male professional player.
Generate the key problems
We generated the key findings and divided them into two categories — about WCBS and about billiard in general.
WCBS
WCBS didn’t seem to be the ultimate authority representing all the billiards disciplines.
WCBS is unknown or irrelevant to players.
Billiards
The public doesn’t know much and is not interested in billiards.
Billiards are less accessible to the youth.
Female players are discouraged in the game.
Ideation
HMW Exploration
We used the HMW method to brainstorm the potential UX solutions targeting the key findings.
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WCBS is the ultimate authority
Prioritize the relationship between WCBS and its three associate federations on the landing page
Include the federations’ news and events
Timeline of WCBS history
Rule and statutes
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Relevant to the players and their federations
Top player rankings
Player highlights
Update billiards news and events, including news from the federations
Highlights of events or competitions (photos, videos, etc.)
Live streaming
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Let the public know more about billiards
Educational resource (“how to play” in documents or tutorials)
Exciting competition clips
History and fun facts about billiards
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Appeal the youth
Social media highlights
Image usage — include young players
Player highlights — include young players
Dynamic UI design
Refreshed visuals
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Female friendly
Image usage — include female players
Player highlights — include female players
The brand visuals and language can’t be too masculant
Competitive Analysis
Our team researched the direct or indirect competitors to see their weaknesses and strengthen, as well as for inspirations.
Making the solution decisions
After discussing with the client, we understood their capability and the time limitation, which was helpful for us to do the Feature Prioritization Matrix. We decided to focus on some main features for the launch phase.
Design
AI and Sketching
Once the key features were approved, I started by structuring the content on the sitemap and sketching the hi-level design on paper, which helped me generate ideas about the arrangement of UI, functional elements, and interactive behaviors.
1st iteration on the low fidelity wireframe
After gathering feedback on the sitemap and sketches, I started to design the wireframes, followed by the 1st iteration with the design team. Below are some of the main feedbacks.
Make it visually exciting
Because WCBS wants to drive the excitement of billiards to a younger generation, the website visually needs to be appealing to them. Its overall feeling should be welcoming, modern, and respectful. I explored different designs on the key sections based on their new brand identity.
Big design changes from the client
During the whole process, we kept communicating with the clients to keep everything aligned. When I was designing the high-fidelity prototype, we heard big design changes from the client.
Need to remove the ATHLETES page that means to highlight professional players. Because they were not able to provide the list of players, including their photos and biographies.
Due to similar reasons, the top player rankings need to be removed from the home page.
Need to add ads on the home page.
They can’t provide competition or tutorial videos for the PLAY page that is meant to teach different billiards sports and triggers the audience’s interest
Adapted client’s changes and 2nd iteration
I adapted the client’s changes on the high-fidelity prototype and discussed with the design team to make sure the changes were aligned with what the client wanted. Then I conducted 2nd user testing. Below is how I adapted the client’s changes and feedback from the user testing, into the final prototype.
Introducing WCBS Website
WCBS is the ultimate authority
Users can quickly understand what WCBS does and its mission, and that it’s the umbrella organization of the three main disciplines federations. On the ABOUT page, they can scroll through the timeline to understand the history of WCBS.
Relevant to the players and the federations
Billiard players can keep updated with the news and events. Each federation is featured on the home page and they have their own individual pages. Their blogs are also featured on the news feed page.
Let the public know more about billiards
The SPORTS page provides basic learning resources for the users.
What I would do differently.
Because of the limited resources and time, we missed out on opportunities to make this website even better. So if we had the opportunity to push the project further, here are what I would do differently: