Client: The Guardian · Role: Product Designer (UX) · Team: Senior Editorial Designer, Senior PM, developers, editorial stakeholders

I inherited a stalled brief to realign the app and web live sports blogs, which had drifted apart. Following matches end to end showed a bigger issue: an empty pre-match page with little reason to arrive early, fixture context that got lost during play, and reports and stats that were hard to find after full time.

Followed live football matches end to end on app and web

Benchmarked BBC Sport, The Athletic and LiveScore across pre-match, live and post-match

Spoke with football fans across the company about what they need at each moment

Planned and led an ideation workshop with fans, the team and editorial, then narrowed ideas to an MVP with the PM

Defined flows, structure and wireframes, then partnered with Editorial Design on the visual design

One journey, not a consistency fix. I reframed the project around before, during and after the game.

Make pre-match useful. A populated scoreboard, line-up placeholder, team news and related articles before kick-off.

Keep match context visible. A scoreboard that changes state from pre-match to live to full time, with clearer line-ups, cards and substitution times.

Make post-match easy to find. Tabs that appear when relevant, like the Match Report once it's published.

Launched ahead of the World Cup

The approach was extended to cricket and rugby coverage

A fragmented set of pages became one connected match-day experience

A narrow brief can hide a bigger opportunity. Putting competitor evidence next to the whole journey changed the conversation with the PM and showed pre-match mattered as much as live coverage.

Full case study: https://janitadacosta.com/live-sports