PlayVS
The Setup
PlayVS runs on coaches. They're the ones responsible for getting teams to matches, managing rosters across multiple teams, and keeping students engaged week to week. But the match day experience was fragmented — check-in lived in one place, coordination happened on Discord and email, and score reporting was a separate manual flow with no validation. If any single step broke down, the match didn't happen. At 50%+ forfeit rates, that was a real problem.
Overview
Project Type: Core UX Scaling & Mobile Optimization
My Role: Lead Product Designer – UI, UX, IA
Platform: Responsive Web & Mobile
Timeline: 1 Year (Spring 2022 – Fall 2023)
Team: PM, 3 Engineers, UX Researcher, Sponsors & Publisher Partners
Outcome: Redesigned the match day experience, reducing forfeits by 74% (50% → 13%) and improving check-in completion from 62% to 97%.
The Problem
This wasn't a single broken feature — it was a broken sequence. Pre-match, coaches had no clear confirmation that their team was actually checked in. During the match, there was no in-platform way to reach the opposing coach. Post-match, score disputes required CS intervention because either team could submit whatever they wanted. Three separate failure points, each one capable of killing a match on its own.
The deeper issue: coaches were doing the platform's job for it, using external tools to fill gaps PlayVS should have owned.
The Decisions
Research with 100+ coaches through post-match surveys and weekly sessions surfaced a key insight that changed our approach: we assumed coaches wanted automation. They actually wanted control and confirmation. That distinction drove every feature decision.
We centralized all three solutions in the Match Lobby — where coaches already spent their time — rather than scattering fixes across the app. Three features, one hub, each solving one driver:
Ready Up replaced the old check-in flow with a single tap confirmation, always visible above the fold, with clear progress across all teams. Coaches finally knew they were done.
In-App Chat brought opponent coordination into the platform. We kept it simple — text only, no files or video — modeled on Discord and Twitch patterns coaches already knew. Role labels (Coach vs Player) solved the "who do I even talk to" problem.
Match Assistant replaced freeform score entry with a guided, step-by-step wizard requiring cross-team validation before submission. Both teams had to agree. Disputes dropped immediately.
We shipped incrementally — Chat and basic Scoreboard in Spring, full Match Assistant with cross-team validation in Fall — so coaches could adapt without feeling like everything changed at once.
The Results
The new Match Assistant reduced forfeits by 74%, cut support tickets by 36%, and increased check-ins from 62% to 97%. Future iterations will refine team role management and automation to further improve the experience.
