Arena

Sports Management Platform (SaaS)

Role Lead UX/UI Designer

Tools Figma · Jira · Confluence · Slack

Duration Dec 2024 – Present

Status Ongoing – Active product

Overview

Arena is a sports platform designed to help organizers create and manage leagues and tournaments, while allowing athletes and spectators to follow competitions, track live scores, and view performance data in real time.

The Challenge

  • Competitions managed with spreadsheets, paper schedules, and WhatsApp chats

  • No real-time visibility of scores, standings, or player stats for anyone outside the game

  • No central place for players to track their performance history across competitions

GameSchedule

How sports competitions are often managed today

My Role & Responsibilities

I joined Arena as the sole designer when the product was just a concept. Every screen and flow was designed by me, informed by competitive research and continuous iteration with the team.

Design system & component library

Multi-perspective flow design

End-to-end UX/UI design

Information architecture

Developer handoff documentation

Key Design Decisions

Structuring League Creation

The league setup required multiple rules, scheduling logic, and configuration settings. Presenting everything in a single linear form created friction and low clarity.

I restructured the flow into progressive sections to reduce cognitive load. Instead of minimizing features, the focus was on grouping related inputs and creating logical progression.

Live Scoring Under Pressure

Live scoring had to work under pressure: loud environments, officials focused on the game, no time for mistakes. The design prioritizes speed, large tap targets, always-visible score, immediate visual feedback, and undo support. Stats update in real time so coaches and spectators see performance as it happens.

Key Screens

League Profile

League profile as central hub

Tabs organize content by purpose: Schedule for match calendar, Standings for rankings by division, Leaders for top performers, Playoffs for bracket view, and Awards for season recognition. Each perspective serves a different user need without overwhelming a single view.

My Teams

Team management with status filtering

Active, Pending, and Past tabs filter teams by engagement status. Each card surfaces key info at a glance: role within the team, roster size, tournament count, and upcoming match details when relevant, reducing the need to drill into each team to understand current priorities.

Calendar

Auto-generated match calendar

Based on league configuration (teams, format, available courts), the system proposes a complete schedule with time slots and venues. Organizers can manually adjust or approve as-is, eliminating hours of manual scheduling work.

Reflection

What I learned

Designing Arena reinforced that structuring complexity is more critical than simplifying features. Clear information architecture can significantly reduce perceived effort, even when the system itself is feature-dense.

What I would do differently

If I could do one thing differently, I would get the live scoring flow in front of real table officials earlier. Their speed and behavior under match pressure is something you can only partially anticipate through research.