June 03, 2022
My Role
UX Designer — Service Design, User Flows, Prototyping, Visual Design
Team
Mukul Parthi, UX Researcher
Dr. Sukantu Majumdar, Project Guide
Duration
Jan 2022 - June 2022
Overview
This project was a part of our Post-Graduation Project thesis that we were required to do in our M.Des.curriculum. We were required to work in a group of 2 & this was one of the 3 topics that we proposed for the same.
Mukul, my team mate, himself being an active Kabaddi & Football player, the problem faced by the Kabaddi referees is something he himself observed closely.
Thus, this project deals how we validated the problem statement, conducted field research, gained insights & finally designed India's 1st digitalised platform for Kabaddi scoring.
Let's understand the problem
Kabaddi is the 2nd most viewed sports after Cricket. It's also the state-game for 10+ Indian states.
'The Pro Kabaddi League' further motivated private organisations to come forward & organise large-scale Kabaddi tournaments in different regions of the country. The problem associated with these tournaments have 2 aspects:
For Teams
A team is required to submit its team members' details.
Once submitted, they need to physically verify players' ID/ Aadhaar.
These tournaments are organised throughout the year & the above 2 steps have to be repeated every time teams go for a new tournament!
For Scorers
Once scorers receive team list, they're required to physically copy the names to Score Sheet.
Scorers often ignore copying every player's name. Every time one needs to see the team members they have to refer the original records sheet.
These tournaments often lack basic forms/ documents. Due to which scorers often have no forms to note scores & use blank sheets/ unofficial ways to do so.
We conducted detailed field research to validate it…
Once our Literature Survey was completed, we validated the problem. We just needed to know it's depth.
We did detailed field research & closely observed the working of scorers & players in a real-time Kabaddi match. We even volunteered as scorers for our Inter-Hostel Kabaddi matches
We learned that the problem was not as simple as we thought
The problem was not only validated, but we identified 10+ serious issues which were though subtle but were specifically highlighted by the stakeholders, adding to what we had observed. Some of them mentioned below:
📄
A single match requires 5 diff. scoresheets
🔍
A point's mistake requires score scrutiny from scratch
💰
Reimbursement of score sheet xerox cost is ambiguous
⏱
Scorers & referee need to match timers after every 30 mins
To make sure the game is recorded correctly- precautions take place.
🚫
Past matches' scoresheets not available for reference
🏆
Individual player doesn't get recognition they deserve
We were amazed how Cricket scoring apps are solving it 🤯
We realised that the problems that we've observed are somewhat similar to any other group sports that are popular among masses.
This is when we came across companies whose business were built just by this facility of giving scoring accessibility to masses.
For example - Cric Heroes. Be it digitalisation of scores, online records, real-time data…anything, they were solving for every other issues that we had identified for Kabaddi.
3
Cricket apps explored
8
Kabaddi apps explored
We needed a digital intervention, 1st of it's kind for Kabaddi
Our problem statement was clear & crisp:
Designing a service-level solution for digital Kabaddi scoring & thereby bridging the gap between scorers - players during tournaments
We aimed for a systematic solution that could benefit every other Kabaddi match in our locality
We designed a solution that would make least possible changes in the current Kabaddi Federation level changes. In fact, our solution was a scalable solution that was a layer on the current system.
Service design roadmap that we planned for the tool:
Presenting 'Count Kabaddi'…
An epitome of high spirit, power & energy, we wanted to choose bright colour colours for our branding. After analysing 20+ sport apps we finally went ahead with this:
We went into understanding the technical aspect of Kabaddi
Kabaddi primarily consists of 2 rounds - 1st & 2nd half with 3 other secondary edge rounds. If the game doesn't gets concluded after 1st two rounds, the results are decided by 5-5 Raid round, Golden raid & Golden Toss subsequently.
Thus, we had to make sure the platform is designed to handle all such rounds & cases, one after the other.
We designed interfaces both for Players & Scorers
Players & scorers were 2 main stakeholders of this problem. While the players have to register, verify & apply for the tournaments, the scorers need to do the scoring for those matches digitally through the app. Thus, we designed 2 interfaces for both players & scorers.
Thinking about the mass reach to the solution of this problem, we also designed the tool for both mobile & tablets, seeing the accessibility, network & mobility aspects.
Use-cases covered for Players
Player logs-in & creates their profile
Profile shows everything relevant for authorities to verify a players' documents, personal stats & digital points, if any.
The captain of the local team registers their team & adds player
The captain sends an invite to all the players who've created their profile digitally, on confirming of which they join the team digitally
One-stop solution for everything Kabaddi
Networking with peers, upcoming tournaments, team registrations, local communities, marketplace - it has everything!
Use-cases covered for Scorers
Scorers, asst. scorers & time scorers performs their function through the Scoring App
The app also available on Tablet for events well sponsored
The bigger screens, comes more flexibility in terms of efficiency of the scorers. On the contrary, mobile version is for mass reach & tournaments organised in remote areas
