ShowNxt
The future of athletic recruiting
in the NCAA.
Product Design
Mobile
Design Leadership
Context
📋 Overview
ShowNxt is a mobile application that streamlines collegiate athletic recruiting by offering a platform for athletes to apply to openings, and for coaches to post those openings. I am the product design lead at ShowNxt.
In this case study, I will focus on how I led a key change in application scope, and the designs that followed this.
👥 Stakeholders
My frontend engineering experience helped considerably in being able to continuously communicate with engineering stakeholders, ensuring a smooth transition from design to development.
Problem
⚡️ The Challenge
How can we provide the most streamlined recruiting experience for athletes?
ShowNxt's overarching goal is simple: get athletes recruited. The initial model was based around the intersection of social media & recruiting, which the team felt asthough distracted from the primary goal of getting recruited.
Finished SHOWNXT SCREENS
Design Process
👥 Research & User Interviews
The first step needed to be discovering exactly where were the major pain points in the recruiting process, for both athlete and coach. I conducted user interviews with collegiate coaches at Northeastern, and my teammates on the track team.
Coaches revealed to me that with their current system of searching for athletes was incredibly manual, and also highly restricted by NCAA guidelines.
"If athletes reach out to me, there are far less restrictions"
-> Current Associate Head Coach
Athletes revealed that recruiting process was athlete-driven, and that there wasn't any centralized way for them to search for openings, filter openings and contact coaches.
"There is no centralized way for me to filter through schools, apply to opportunities and message coaches all under the same umbrella"
-> Former Division 1 Track & Cross Country Athlete
Design process
Architecture
ShowNxt's initial business strategy was a blend of social media and recruiting (think Tiktok meets Linkedin), where posting clips and applying to positions ran in parallel.
User interviews pointed out that the real key painpoint was that they had no centralized way to apply to openings and interact with coaches, and that the process needed to be athlete-driven.
So, the first step was to alter the athlete architecture (which I am showing through the nav bar) to shift the focus completely to getting recruited.
Design process
Apply flow
With the athlete feed now dedicated to browsing openings, I began exploring possible routes an athlete could take to apply to an opportunity.
I came up with the following user flow:
-> User opens feed
-> User filters feed (if necessary)
-> User clicks opening, opens application page
-> User clicks apply (submits profile to opening)
Design
Feed
Creating a clear path to ultimately submitting your application for a opening was key, and so I kept the design minimal and simple, to keep the goal clear.
Keeping users and the team close throughout the process revealed many critiques and subsequent iterations, particularly around hierarchy, contrast and minimizing clicks.
In the final design, I created cards and restructured to bring key functionality out of silos, and into the users direct line of sight.
Design
Filtering System
A key athlete concern was being unable to find positions that were suited to them. So, I included a filtering system. Research revealed that for many applications where you search for openings, the filtering is often siloed.
To combat this and streamline the process, I included filtering as a key point of focus on the feed, making finding the right position for you accessible.
Design
Opening Page
The final step for this flow was creating the opening page.
Athletes revealed they wanted to see statistics like academic ranking, athletic ranking, and happiness indexes. I implemented a toggle that allowed users to switch from coach - inputted information to school information.
Prototypes & Validation
I prototyped and tested the flow with users and the team. They commented that it was clear, streamlined, and most of all, maximized ability to apply to opportunities and connect with college coaches.
Alongside the prototype, I developed a design system for my team for consistency across the rest of the application.
Takeaways
🏃♂️ Rapid iteration yields success
Prior to ShowNxt and Flo, much of my previous work had been quite corporate and slower moving than in a startup. I learnt that being scrappy and exploring lots of different ideas and avenues quickly leads to faster and ultimately more thorough exploration, rather than spending time creating pixel-perfect low fidelity frames.
❤️ Trust your team and the process
As the sole designer on ShowNxt, sometimes the going could get really tough, and more times than one I found myself in a rut and really not feeling great about my work. It was through the grit, determination and the encouragement of my team that I was able to build something I am incredibly proud of, and certainly what I would call my best work.
A massive shoutout to Lucas, Zach, Leah, Jill, Jamie and Doug for standing by me through what has been an incredibly challenging and rewarding experience.
A coach I had during my track career always used to tell me to trust the process, and ShowNxt has shown me that is true both athletically and professionally.
Credits
Skills
UX Design
UI Design
Prototyping
Digital Design
Creative development
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Framer
Photoshop
Illustrator
team
Leadership
Lucas Espada
Zachary Jarnagin
Design
Max Spencer
Development
Zachary Jarnagin
Leah Zeisner
Jill Lombardi
Jamie Koo
Douglas Read
Research
Max Spencer
