A lot of listening. A lot of testing. And a whole lot of simplifying.
At MLSE, I led the UX overhaul of the Toronto Maple Leafs app leading into the playoffs.
One of the biggest takeaways from our user research was that fans actually fall into three distinct groups with very different needs.
- You have the casual fan watching from home, with friends or at a bar.
- The in-arena fans who are watching it live.
- Die-hard fans at the tailgate viewing party outside the arena.
Instead of including everything into one experience and making users sort it out themselves, we went with a segmented approach. This allowed us to tailor the app to each group, surfacing only the most relevant info for how and where they were engaging.
We also rebuilt core user flows and made real time content more accessible especially for those high traffic moments.
The result? The app became the #1 sports app in Canada.
This wasn’t just a visual refresh. This was real problem solving at speed and scale with daily active users surpassing 60k.
I’ve been building product experiences for over 10 years, and the one thing that’s never changed: great UX removes friction.