Aug 2023 - Oct 2024
Form Guide Redesign
Updated the data tables and tools that horse racing enthusiasts analyse.
Information Design
UX UI
Overview
Punters is a form guide platform for recreational horse racing, greyhound, and harness betting enthusiasts. Unlike bookmakers, Punters exists to help users make smarter, more informed decisions. The platform's strength lies in breaking down complex racing data into digestible, visual formats that give punters a genuine edge before they place a bet. After completing a new design system, the team identified the form guide - the single most visited section of the site - as the ideal starting point for a full rebuild. The goal was to apply the design system, resolve deep-rooted usability issues, and modernise the experience before rolling changes out across the rest of the site.
I reduced bounce rate by 52% and increased time on page by 79%, while delivering a 44% lift in bookmaker ad click-through rates - turning the site's highest-traffic pages into a stronger experience for users and a stronger commercial asset for the business.
My Role
One of two product designers on this redesign.
I was responsible for the UI design whilst my co-designer led user research and interviews, while I focused on analysis, competitive benchmarking, design execution, and cross-functional collaboration. Together we worked alongside a graphic designer, web and app developers (iOS & Android), a project manager, a business analyst, and key business stakeholders to align the final product with both user needs and commercial goals.
Problem
The most visited pages on Punters were riddled with accessibility failures, visual inconsistencies, and poor information hierarchy - undermining user trust and leaving significant ad revenue on the table.
The Punters site had accumulated significant inconsistencies over time. Icon styles, colours, and UI patterns varied across pages - signalling the same concepts in different ways. For a platform that positions itself as a trusted, authoritative source, these inconsistencies were quietly eroding user confidence.
Beyond visual polish, the site had real usability and accessibility gaps. Using the WAVE tool I found many errors from colour, alt text, structural and lack of ARIA’s which need to be addressed. The form guide and index pages together account for roughly a third of the 111 million views a year the site garners, so I wanted to get the experience right. The bookmaker stacker - sold ad placements - had particularly poor click-through rates on mobile, where the majority of users were.
Goals
Improve the looks, user experience, rebuild the brand and grow sales
Improve usability through better information hierarchy, clearer navigation, and accessible design
Create a visually cohesive experience that reduces cognitive load and rebuilds trust in the brand
Modernise tools and features to stay competitive while making complex data easier to understand
Increase click-through rates on paid ad placements to strengthen the site's commercial performance
Outcomes
The rebuild delivered measurable impact across key metric within a year of launch:
52.3% reduction in bounce rate year-over-year
13.9% growth in engaged users year-over-year
43.5% increase in click-through rates across all bookmaker ad placements site-wide
78.9% increase in average time spent on page
3.5/5 customer satisfaction score from over 500 users surveyed one month after launch
Met WAVE accessibility checks
Process
Process - Discover
Product Analysis
Before diving into research, I did a thorough walkthrough of the entire site - every page, every tool, every interaction. Approaching it as a first-time user gave me an immediate, unfiltered sense of where the experience broke down.
The verdict: the site was not beginner-friendly. Key features lacked discoverability and learnability, and anyone unfamiliar with horse racing terminology or form guide conventions would quickly feel lost. The form index - the main entry point to all upcoming races - was a single undifferentiated list, mixing today and the next upcoming days with Australian and international races with no filtering, prioritisation, or visual flow to guide users.
Competitive Analysis
I audited competitor platforms to understand how others were handling the challenge of presenting dense racing data accessibly. This surfaced both tactical solutions to adopt and gaps in the market to exploit. One standout pattern was the "fast form" - a snapshot of a runner's key stats and recent highlights that lets users rapidly assess a horse without digging into their full race history. Most major bookmakers offered something similar; Punters didn't.
Heatmap Analysis
Heatmap data on the form index confirmed a key hypothesis: users rarely engaged with anything below the fold. Races weren't being discovered. The page needed structure that brought the right races to the surface quickly.
User Research & Insights
I sought to understand how 20 - 50 year old recreational punters analyse their horse racing form, including which existing sources, data and tools they use, and in doing so, identify opportunities to optimise and enhance usability.
My own experience as a non-punter gave me useful beginner's-eye perspective, and I needed to validate assumptions and understand the real mental models of recreational bettors.
The team conducted contextual interviews with 15 premium and lite members, observing how they used the platform across desktop and mobile. Three key insights emerged:
Punters trust independent sources over bookmakers
Users actively sought out non-bookmaker platforms like Punters to get an unbiased read on a race. This validated a significant opportunity: by adding race overview comments, horse-by-horse commentary, and expert tips directly to the form guide, we could become the trusted voice users already wanted us to be.
Recreational bettors have strong form guide conventions
Users were anchored to familiar form guide layouts from years of habit. Deviating from expected structures created friction, not delight. The insight here wasn't to copy competitors - it was to meet users in a familiar format first, then layer in Punters' unique value on top.
Sticks to the same formula
Once a recreational punter settles on a form resource, they rarely switch. This made acquisition - especially catching punters as they transition from major events to regular racing - critically important. It also made discoverability of Punters' premium tools a priority: if new users don't find the tools early, they never will.
Process - Develop
Form Index
The redesigned index replaced the undifferentiated race list with a structured, scannable layout. A prominent page header established visual hierarchy from the moment users landed on the page. Tabbed navigation separated upcoming days, while filtering by country (Australia vs. International) and racing code (Horses, Greyhounds, Harness) made it simple to surface the races that actually mattered to each user.
Race selectors and table were redesigned to carry more context to the race - weather, track conditions, and status tags were surfaced inline, so users could triage quickly. A refined right column reduced the original array of upcoming races down to four focused form-related actions. A new badge system on race selectors indicated horses users had black-booked, as well as races with live bookie offers, making high-value races immediately identifiable at a glance.
Bookie Stacker Updates
The existing bookmaker stacker sat below a block of SEO content on mobile - effectively invisible to users. Rather than push for a layout overhaul, we designed a compact stacker format for the top of mobile pages that fit naturally into the browsing flow without interrupting it.
The new format led with a row of bookie logos, with the premium placement receiving larger real estate and priority positioning. A single rotating bookie card below highlighted one offer at a time - surfacing a random offer each visit to keep it fresh, with the premium bookie slot appearing at a higher frequency. A persistent "See All Offers" button ensured nothing was hidden for users who wanted to explore. The result: a 44% year over year lift in click-through rates across all bookmaker stackers, on both desktop and mobile - and the format was adopted across similar pages site-wide.
Form Guide
The form guide itself received the most significant overhaul. Race details, race buttons and meeting dropdown housed in the page header along with the tool tabs. Race navigation and race selectors were updated with the same black book badges and icons introduced on the index, creating a consistent system across the two most-visited pages.
The runner information, odds, and statistics were reorganised into a clear page header and a restructured runner table, grouping related data points together for easier scanning and comparison. Blue info icons and tooltips were introduced across the table to define unfamiliar racing terminology inline - removing a key comprehension barrier for newer users. I've also introduced the “quick form” to give users a snapshot of either positive or negative data points they may need to consider.
The expanded runner view - which surfaces full race history, lifetime stats, and odds insights - was reorganised around how users actually read data such as their win rate with their track record running that distance. New content areas were introduced to display race overview comments, horse-by-horse comments, and expert tips directly on the form guide - bringing the trusted voice users said they wanted front and centre.
All tools were restyled to match the updated design system and given explainer modals with tutorial videos to support discoverability and onboarding.
Lite Member and Guest experience
For users without premium access, a new preview state replaced the previous disabled tab - showing icons, short descriptions, and an animated GIF to communicate the tool's value before asking users to upgrade.
Process - Launch & Test
Revisions
Internal testing with avid punters prior to launch was smooth, with minimal friction flagged. We proceeded with a phased rollout - a deliberate choice given the traffic volume of the pages involved. Within the first week, a consistent piece of feedback emerged: users were finding it cumbersome to compare a runner's historical race data against their current profile when the two lived on separate tabs. A simple fix - collapsing a three-tab layout into two - resolved it cleanly. After full rollout, no further actionable issues were raised.
Learnings
Platform complexity is a design constraint, not an afterthought.
Designing for web, mobile web, iOS, and Android simultaneously meant understanding the subtle but meaningful differences between each - including legal requirements that altered the web experience in ways with real UX implications.
Stakeholder communication is a design skill.
Navigating the different priorities of development, sales, and editorial teams required translating design decisions into the language each team cared about most.
Data builds conviction.
Having heatmaps, user interviews, and satisfaction scores to reference throughout the process made every design decision easier to defend - and easier to improve.
Launching is the start of the design process, not the end.
The post-launch tab feedback was a useful reminder that no amount of internal testing fully replicates real user behaviour at scale. Building in mechanisms to listen and iterate quickly is as important as getting the initial design right.
Next Steps
Monitor engagement data and satisfaction scores on an ongoing basis to track whether the improvements hold and where new friction emerges. Continue watching competitor updates for features that could raise user expectations. Expand the design system rollout to the rest of the site, using lessons from this rebuild to move faster and more confidently.
More works
Aug 2023 - Oct 2024
Form Guide Redesign
Updated the data tables and tools that horse racing enthusiasts analyse.
Information Design
UX UI
Overview
Punters is a form guide platform for recreational horse racing, greyhound, and harness betting enthusiasts. Unlike bookmakers, Punters exists to help users make smarter, more informed decisions. The platform's strength lies in breaking down complex racing data into digestible, visual formats that give punters a genuine edge before they place a bet. After completing a new design system, the team identified the form guide - the single most visited section of the site - as the ideal starting point for a full rebuild. The goal was to apply the design system, resolve deep-rooted usability issues, and modernise the experience before rolling changes out across the rest of the site.
I reduced bounce rate by 52% and increased time on page by 79%, while delivering a 44% lift in bookmaker ad click-through rates - turning the site's highest-traffic pages into a stronger experience for users and a stronger commercial asset for the business.
My Role
One of two product designers on this redesign.
I was responsible for the UI design whilst my co-designer led user research and interviews, while I focused on analysis, competitive benchmarking, design execution, and cross-functional collaboration. Together we worked alongside a graphic designer, web and app developers (iOS & Android), a project manager, a business analyst, and key business stakeholders to align the final product with both user needs and commercial goals.
Problem
The most visited pages on Punters were riddled with accessibility failures, visual inconsistencies, and poor information hierarchy - undermining user trust and leaving significant ad revenue on the table.
The Punters site had accumulated significant inconsistencies over time. Icon styles, colours, and UI patterns varied across pages - signalling the same concepts in different ways. For a platform that positions itself as a trusted, authoritative source, these inconsistencies were quietly eroding user confidence.
Beyond visual polish, the site had real usability and accessibility gaps. Using the WAVE tool I found many errors from colour, alt text, structural and lack of ARIA’s which need to be addressed. The form guide and index pages together account for roughly a third of the 111 million views a year the site garners, so I wanted to get the experience right. The bookmaker stacker - sold ad placements - had particularly poor click-through rates on mobile, where the majority of users were.
Goals
Improve the looks, user experience, rebuild the brand and grow sales
Improve usability through better information hierarchy, clearer navigation, and accessible design
Create a visually cohesive experience that reduces cognitive load and rebuilds trust in the brand
Modernise tools and features to stay competitive while making complex data easier to understand
Increase click-through rates on paid ad placements to strengthen the site's commercial performance
Outcomes
The rebuild delivered measurable impact across key metric within a year of launch:
52.3% reduction in bounce rate year-over-year
13.9% growth in engaged users year-over-year
43.5% increase in click-through rates across all bookmaker ad placements site-wide
78.9% increase in average time spent on page
3.5/5 customer satisfaction score from over 500 users surveyed one month after launch
Met WAVE accessibility checks
Process
Process - Discover
Product Analysis
Before diving into research, I did a thorough walkthrough of the entire site - every page, every tool, every interaction. Approaching it as a first-time user gave me an immediate, unfiltered sense of where the experience broke down.
The verdict: the site was not beginner-friendly. Key features lacked discoverability and learnability, and anyone unfamiliar with horse racing terminology or form guide conventions would quickly feel lost. The form index - the main entry point to all upcoming races - was a single undifferentiated list, mixing today and the next upcoming days with Australian and international races with no filtering, prioritisation, or visual flow to guide users.
Competitive Analysis
I audited competitor platforms to understand how others were handling the challenge of presenting dense racing data accessibly. This surfaced both tactical solutions to adopt and gaps in the market to exploit. One standout pattern was the "fast form" - a snapshot of a runner's key stats and recent highlights that lets users rapidly assess a horse without digging into their full race history. Most major bookmakers offered something similar; Punters didn't.
Heatmap Analysis
Heatmap data on the form index confirmed a key hypothesis: users rarely engaged with anything below the fold. Races weren't being discovered. The page needed structure that brought the right races to the surface quickly.
User Research & Insights
I sought to understand how 20 - 50 year old recreational punters analyse their horse racing form, including which existing sources, data and tools they use, and in doing so, identify opportunities to optimise and enhance usability.
My own experience as a non-punter gave me useful beginner's-eye perspective, and I needed to validate assumptions and understand the real mental models of recreational bettors.
The team conducted contextual interviews with 15 premium and lite members, observing how they used the platform across desktop and mobile. Three key insights emerged:
Punters trust independent sources over bookmakers
Users actively sought out non-bookmaker platforms like Punters to get an unbiased read on a race. This validated a significant opportunity: by adding race overview comments, horse-by-horse commentary, and expert tips directly to the form guide, we could become the trusted voice users already wanted us to be.
Recreational bettors have strong form guide conventions
Users were anchored to familiar form guide layouts from years of habit. Deviating from expected structures created friction, not delight. The insight here wasn't to copy competitors - it was to meet users in a familiar format first, then layer in Punters' unique value on top.
Sticks to the same formula
Once a recreational punter settles on a form resource, they rarely switch. This made acquisition - especially catching punters as they transition from major events to regular racing - critically important. It also made discoverability of Punters' premium tools a priority: if new users don't find the tools early, they never will.
Process - Develop
Form Index
The redesigned index replaced the undifferentiated race list with a structured, scannable layout. A prominent page header established visual hierarchy from the moment users landed on the page. Tabbed navigation separated upcoming days, while filtering by country (Australia vs. International) and racing code (Horses, Greyhounds, Harness) made it simple to surface the races that actually mattered to each user.
Race selectors and table were redesigned to carry more context to the race - weather, track conditions, and status tags were surfaced inline, so users could triage quickly. A refined right column reduced the original array of upcoming races down to four focused form-related actions. A new badge system on race selectors indicated horses users had black-booked, as well as races with live bookie offers, making high-value races immediately identifiable at a glance.
Bookie Stacker Updates
The existing bookmaker stacker sat below a block of SEO content on mobile - effectively invisible to users. Rather than push for a layout overhaul, we designed a compact stacker format for the top of mobile pages that fit naturally into the browsing flow without interrupting it.
The new format led with a row of bookie logos, with the premium placement receiving larger real estate and priority positioning. A single rotating bookie card below highlighted one offer at a time - surfacing a random offer each visit to keep it fresh, with the premium bookie slot appearing at a higher frequency. A persistent "See All Offers" button ensured nothing was hidden for users who wanted to explore. The result: a 44% year over year lift in click-through rates across all bookmaker stackers, on both desktop and mobile - and the format was adopted across similar pages site-wide.
Form Guide
The form guide itself received the most significant overhaul. Race details, race buttons and meeting dropdown housed in the page header along with the tool tabs. Race navigation and race selectors were updated with the same black book badges and icons introduced on the index, creating a consistent system across the two most-visited pages.
The runner information, odds, and statistics were reorganised into a clear page header and a restructured runner table, grouping related data points together for easier scanning and comparison. Blue info icons and tooltips were introduced across the table to define unfamiliar racing terminology inline - removing a key comprehension barrier for newer users. I've also introduced the “quick form” to give users a snapshot of either positive or negative data points they may need to consider.
The expanded runner view - which surfaces full race history, lifetime stats, and odds insights - was reorganised around how users actually read data such as their win rate with their track record running that distance. New content areas were introduced to display race overview comments, horse-by-horse comments, and expert tips directly on the form guide - bringing the trusted voice users said they wanted front and centre.
All tools were restyled to match the updated design system and given explainer modals with tutorial videos to support discoverability and onboarding.
Lite Member and Guest experience
For users without premium access, a new preview state replaced the previous disabled tab - showing icons, short descriptions, and an animated GIF to communicate the tool's value before asking users to upgrade.
Process - Launch & Test
Revisions
Internal testing with avid punters prior to launch was smooth, with minimal friction flagged. We proceeded with a phased rollout - a deliberate choice given the traffic volume of the pages involved. Within the first week, a consistent piece of feedback emerged: users were finding it cumbersome to compare a runner's historical race data against their current profile when the two lived on separate tabs. A simple fix - collapsing a three-tab layout into two - resolved it cleanly. After full rollout, no further actionable issues were raised.
Learnings
Platform complexity is a design constraint, not an afterthought.
Designing for web, mobile web, iOS, and Android simultaneously meant understanding the subtle but meaningful differences between each - including legal requirements that altered the web experience in ways with real UX implications.
Stakeholder communication is a design skill.
Navigating the different priorities of development, sales, and editorial teams required translating design decisions into the language each team cared about most.
Data builds conviction.
Having heatmaps, user interviews, and satisfaction scores to reference throughout the process made every design decision easier to defend - and easier to improve.
Launching is the start of the design process, not the end.
The post-launch tab feedback was a useful reminder that no amount of internal testing fully replicates real user behaviour at scale. Building in mechanisms to listen and iterate quickly is as important as getting the initial design right.
Next Steps
Monitor engagement data and satisfaction scores on an ongoing basis to track whether the improvements hold and where new friction emerges. Continue watching competitor updates for features that could raise user expectations. Expand the design system rollout to the rest of the site, using lessons from this rebuild to move faster and more confidently.
More works
Aug 2023 - Oct 2024
Form Guide Redesign
Updated the data tables and tools that horse racing enthusiasts analyse.
Information Design
UX UI
Overview
Punters is a form guide platform for recreational horse racing, greyhound, and harness betting enthusiasts. Unlike bookmakers, Punters exists to help users make smarter, more informed decisions. The platform's strength lies in breaking down complex racing data into digestible, visual formats that give punters a genuine edge before they place a bet. After completing a new design system, the team identified the form guide - the single most visited section of the site - as the ideal starting point for a full rebuild. The goal was to apply the design system, resolve deep-rooted usability issues, and modernise the experience before rolling changes out across the rest of the site.
I reduced bounce rate by 52% and increased time on page by 79%, while delivering a 44% lift in bookmaker ad click-through rates - turning the site's highest-traffic pages into a stronger experience for users and a stronger commercial asset for the business.
My Role
One of two product designers on this redesign.
I was responsible for the UI design whilst my co-designer led user research and interviews, while I focused on analysis, competitive benchmarking, design execution, and cross-functional collaboration. Together we worked alongside a graphic designer, web and app developers (iOS & Android), a project manager, a business analyst, and key business stakeholders to align the final product with both user needs and commercial goals.
Problem
The most visited pages on Punters were riddled with accessibility failures, visual inconsistencies, and poor information hierarchy - undermining user trust and leaving significant ad revenue on the table.
The Punters site had accumulated significant inconsistencies over time. Icon styles, colours, and UI patterns varied across pages - signalling the same concepts in different ways. For a platform that positions itself as a trusted, authoritative source, these inconsistencies were quietly eroding user confidence.
Beyond visual polish, the site had real usability and accessibility gaps. Using the WAVE tool I found many errors from colour, alt text, structural and lack of ARIA’s which need to be addressed. The form guide and index pages together account for roughly a third of the 111 million views a year the site garners, so I wanted to get the experience right. The bookmaker stacker - sold ad placements - had particularly poor click-through rates on mobile, where the majority of users were.
Goals
Improve the looks, user experience, rebuild the brand and grow sales
Improve usability through better information hierarchy, clearer navigation, and accessible design
Create a visually cohesive experience that reduces cognitive load and rebuilds trust in the brand
Modernise tools and features to stay competitive while making complex data easier to understand
Increase click-through rates on paid ad placements to strengthen the site's commercial performance
Outcomes
The rebuild delivered measurable impact across key metric within a year of launch:
52.3% reduction in bounce rate year-over-year
13.9% growth in engaged users year-over-year
43.5% increase in click-through rates across all bookmaker ad placements site-wide
78.9% increase in average time spent on page
3.5/5 customer satisfaction score from over 500 users surveyed one month after launch
Met WAVE accessibility checks
Process
Process - Discover
Product Analysis
Before diving into research, I did a thorough walkthrough of the entire site - every page, every tool, every interaction. Approaching it as a first-time user gave me an immediate, unfiltered sense of where the experience broke down.
The verdict: the site was not beginner-friendly. Key features lacked discoverability and learnability, and anyone unfamiliar with horse racing terminology or form guide conventions would quickly feel lost. The form index - the main entry point to all upcoming races - was a single undifferentiated list, mixing today and the next upcoming days with Australian and international races with no filtering, prioritisation, or visual flow to guide users.
Competitive Analysis
I audited competitor platforms to understand how others were handling the challenge of presenting dense racing data accessibly. This surfaced both tactical solutions to adopt and gaps in the market to exploit. One standout pattern was the "fast form" - a snapshot of a runner's key stats and recent highlights that lets users rapidly assess a horse without digging into their full race history. Most major bookmakers offered something similar; Punters didn't.
Heatmap Analysis
Heatmap data on the form index confirmed a key hypothesis: users rarely engaged with anything below the fold. Races weren't being discovered. The page needed structure that brought the right races to the surface quickly.
User Research & Insights
I sought to understand how 20 - 50 year old recreational punters analyse their horse racing form, including which existing sources, data and tools they use, and in doing so, identify opportunities to optimise and enhance usability.
My own experience as a non-punter gave me useful beginner's-eye perspective, and I needed to validate assumptions and understand the real mental models of recreational bettors.
The team conducted contextual interviews with 15 premium and lite members, observing how they used the platform across desktop and mobile. Three key insights emerged:
Punters trust independent sources over bookmakers
Users actively sought out non-bookmaker platforms like Punters to get an unbiased read on a race. This validated a significant opportunity: by adding race overview comments, horse-by-horse commentary, and expert tips directly to the form guide, we could become the trusted voice users already wanted us to be.
Recreational bettors have strong form guide conventions
Users were anchored to familiar form guide layouts from years of habit. Deviating from expected structures created friction, not delight. The insight here wasn't to copy competitors - it was to meet users in a familiar format first, then layer in Punters' unique value on top.
Sticks to the same formula
Once a recreational punter settles on a form resource, they rarely switch. This made acquisition - especially catching punters as they transition from major events to regular racing - critically important. It also made discoverability of Punters' premium tools a priority: if new users don't find the tools early, they never will.
Process - Develop
Form Index
The redesigned index replaced the undifferentiated race list with a structured, scannable layout. A prominent page header established visual hierarchy from the moment users landed on the page. Tabbed navigation separated upcoming days, while filtering by country (Australia vs. International) and racing code (Horses, Greyhounds, Harness) made it simple to surface the races that actually mattered to each user.
Race selectors and table were redesigned to carry more context to the race - weather, track conditions, and status tags were surfaced inline, so users could triage quickly. A refined right column reduced the original array of upcoming races down to four focused form-related actions. A new badge system on race selectors indicated horses users had black-booked, as well as races with live bookie offers, making high-value races immediately identifiable at a glance.
Bookie Stacker Updates
The existing bookmaker stacker sat below a block of SEO content on mobile - effectively invisible to users. Rather than push for a layout overhaul, we designed a compact stacker format for the top of mobile pages that fit naturally into the browsing flow without interrupting it.
The new format led with a row of bookie logos, with the premium placement receiving larger real estate and priority positioning. A single rotating bookie card below highlighted one offer at a time - surfacing a random offer each visit to keep it fresh, with the premium bookie slot appearing at a higher frequency. A persistent "See All Offers" button ensured nothing was hidden for users who wanted to explore. The result: a 44% year over year lift in click-through rates across all bookmaker stackers, on both desktop and mobile - and the format was adopted across similar pages site-wide.
Form Guide
The form guide itself received the most significant overhaul. Race details, race buttons and meeting dropdown housed in the page header along with the tool tabs. Race navigation and race selectors were updated with the same black book badges and icons introduced on the index, creating a consistent system across the two most-visited pages.
The runner information, odds, and statistics were reorganised into a clear page header and a restructured runner table, grouping related data points together for easier scanning and comparison. Blue info icons and tooltips were introduced across the table to define unfamiliar racing terminology inline - removing a key comprehension barrier for newer users. I've also introduced the “quick form” to give users a snapshot of either positive or negative data points they may need to consider.
The expanded runner view - which surfaces full race history, lifetime stats, and odds insights - was reorganised around how users actually read data such as their win rate with their track record running that distance. New content areas were introduced to display race overview comments, horse-by-horse comments, and expert tips directly on the form guide - bringing the trusted voice users said they wanted front and centre.
All tools were restyled to match the updated design system and given explainer modals with tutorial videos to support discoverability and onboarding.
Lite Member and Guest experience
For users without premium access, a new preview state replaced the previous disabled tab - showing icons, short descriptions, and an animated GIF to communicate the tool's value before asking users to upgrade.
Process - Launch & Test
Revisions
Internal testing with avid punters prior to launch was smooth, with minimal friction flagged. We proceeded with a phased rollout - a deliberate choice given the traffic volume of the pages involved. Within the first week, a consistent piece of feedback emerged: users were finding it cumbersome to compare a runner's historical race data against their current profile when the two lived on separate tabs. A simple fix - collapsing a three-tab layout into two - resolved it cleanly. After full rollout, no further actionable issues were raised.
Learnings
Platform complexity is a design constraint, not an afterthought.
Designing for web, mobile web, iOS, and Android simultaneously meant understanding the subtle but meaningful differences between each - including legal requirements that altered the web experience in ways with real UX implications.
Stakeholder communication is a design skill.
Navigating the different priorities of development, sales, and editorial teams required translating design decisions into the language each team cared about most.
Data builds conviction.
Having heatmaps, user interviews, and satisfaction scores to reference throughout the process made every design decision easier to defend - and easier to improve.
Launching is the start of the design process, not the end.
The post-launch tab feedback was a useful reminder that no amount of internal testing fully replicates real user behaviour at scale. Building in mechanisms to listen and iterate quickly is as important as getting the initial design right.
Next Steps
Monitor engagement data and satisfaction scores on an ongoing basis to track whether the improvements hold and where new friction emerges. Continue watching competitor updates for features that could raise user expectations. Expand the design system rollout to the rest of the site, using lessons from this rebuild to move faster and more confidently.
More works