ROLE

Lead Designer

PRESS

Forbes
Microsoft Transform

Challenges

Die-hard fans would be very sensitive to any change, and Indycar made it clear that a poor experience on their biggest day would not be forgotten. 

The new app needed to be clearly superior yet still provide all the info they were used to. 

How could we enable fans to follow the race in a way they had never been able to before?

What if, you could predict who would win the race? 

Each car has a transponder that communicates with sensors located at the beginning and end of each track section. Time is recorded along with other stats like speed, gear, and overtake (boost) info. 

3GB of telemetric data was sent per car, per lap, amounting to 150 data points. The data was consumed in real-time at nine different "sections" across the track.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is broken into 8 primary sections (blue).  The sum of section times across one lap naturally make up the 'lap time'. 

Finding Our Focus

Out of all the data at our disposal, we eventually focused in on several concepts we suspected would be meaningful, fresh, and exciting for all fans.

• "On the Move / Hot Driver" - Whose performance is trending upward and are likely to move up in position? 
  
  
• "Battles" - The broadcast typically follows the leaders, yet there is a never ending flow of action everywhere on the track. 
  
  
• "Dream / Optimal Lap" - If you could cherry pick your best section times across any lap of the race, what would that lap time be? This might be indicitive of your hypothetical potential.  
  
  
• Best Section Times - What were the track conditions when the best times for any section were posted? This could help you understand if the race was getting faster, or slowing down.  

Detailed Design

I started sketching how we might visually communicate these new concepts, while balancing them with the essentials the fans were used to. It had to be easy to understand the basics, but also discover and immerse in the new features.

We wrestled with how to merge the new data concepts with more standard features. We pushed for a flow that would would not overwhelm at first sight and elegantly expose greater detail and insight as the user went deeper.  

This proved challenging, and through many rapid iterations I drove from complexity to simplicity.

Home - Default View. We started to achieve a better balance between presenting expected information, and the introduction of new concepts. 

Home - Expanded Leaderboard. We continue to explore the types of information we should present in the leaderboard. Here, if the pit-stop status is introduced for the first time.

Home - Leaderboard List view.  The comparison of actual vs hypothetical performance is now wrapped into a single area with the tile view seen above, making for easier discovery and visual simplicity. The data concept of a "dream lap" listing was tossed in favor of focusing in on the "hot" ranking - which had greater relevance and urgency. 

Home - The Best Section times presentation remained fairly consistent throughout the wireframe iterations.  We felt we were on the right track with UI design on how to progressively expose the historical section time details, but It was still perhaps a bit of data overload for casual fans. We would continue to try different approaches into the visual design work.

The Driver Detail view evolved considerably over time from documenting their performance over the course of just one race, to an entire season. This helped tie in a longer-term narrative around a particular driver. Yet, we still didn't feel as though it created enough of a persona for the drivers in order to help fans begin to identify better with a "favorite driver".  We would continue to work on this opportunity during visual design. 

Visual Design

The visual design phase arrived at a simpler presentation of all of the individual track section best times. 

Extra attention was paid to making sure the interaction signifiers were as clear as they could possibly be.  The interface needed to elegantly disclose more information the deeper the fan wanted to dive, but first make sure they knew they could do so in the first place.

Impact

9,267 Unique Fans

experienced the new Race Control Beta app during the 100th Running of the Indy 500.

Visited from 90 different countries

including Brazil, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, France, Australia, and Chile. 

Reflection

The time from introduction to launch was an all-consuming journey resulting in a product that consumed real-time data from vehicles going 230 MPH to tell a story that could be understood by someone sitting on their couch on a Sunday.  Certainly, this was a one of a kind project and I felt incredibly lucky to be a contributor to something that had never been done in Indycar's history.  The metrics above were promising, as there was a good click-through rate from the previous app to the new one, bounce rates were low, and the average session duration was several minutes long. 

Looking back, I would have liked to place a greater context around what constitutes an upward trend to begin with.  I suspect doing so would have been more engaging. I would have also liked to talk with more fans and arrive at better insight into what they might find interesting.  If the performance trends resonated with them, I would work to further hone our predictive algorithm.

Me with some other members of the team hanging out at the world famous Yard of Bricks.