Chuck
Mobile App for Sports Fans
The Challenge
Chuck’s app struggled with unclear navigation, inconsistent UI, and friction across core flows, resulting in drop-offs and low long-term retention. A scalable redesign was needed to improve UX, growth and support new product expansion.
Key Findings:
Hard-to-find core features
Friction across key user flows
Low WAU and weak D30 retention
Inconsistent UI and no design system
No scalable foundation for future releases
My Role
As a Senior UX/UI Designer, I aligned stakeholders around user and business goals, and I owned the full design strategy for Chuck 2.0. My leadership throughout the redesign contributed directly to the app’s 5× WAU growth, improved user retention, and the company’s ability to secure new funding and expand to additional game experiences.
Why a Redesign Was Needed
When I joined the project, the Chuck app faced several critical UX challenges. Users couldn’t easily navigate the experience, key features were hidden behind complex flows, and the UI lacked structure and consistency.
Registration, onboarding, and chat interactions were filled with friction, and the absence of a design system made the app feel fragmented. These gaps led to low engagement and sharp drop-offs throughout the core experience.
My Contribution
UX research and discovery (interviews, testing, heuristics)
Information architecture and new app structure
User flows for all major features
Branding / UI Design System / Components
Prototyping, testing, user interviews, and iterative improvements
Steakholders Presentations
Partnering with engineering for implementation
Design Strategy & Execution
The UX research, discovery work, and heuristic evaluation revealed the key issues holding the product back: a cluttered UI, confusing icons, weak hierarchy, and friction-filled flows. This also helped surface the most requested features and the core user pain points.
Information Architecture & UX Strategy
Using the isgingths from UX research I redesigned the entire app structure—simplifying navigation, improving feature discoverability, and aligning mental models with user expectations. I defined new user flows for onboarding, chat, games, feed, friends, notifications… optimizing them for clarity and speed.
UI Design & Design System
I delivered 70+ high-fidelity screens and built a complete design system with 40+ reusable components, UI tokens, custom iconography, typography rules, spacing tokens, and visual patterns to ensure scalability across future games and features.
Prototyping & Usability Testing
Once the designs were finalized, I created interactive prototypes and conducted usability sessions to validate task completion, clarity, and navigation. Testing with real users allowed me to identify usability and accessibility issues early, refine interaction patterns, and iterate on UI and flows based on direct feedback.
I collaborated closely with the steakholders throughout this phase to ensure feasibility for development and to maintain high standards of usability, accessibility, and visual quality. This process resulted in a functional prototype and a comprehensive set of testing insights that guided final implementation.
Engineering Collaboration & Delivery
Across multiple iterations and user tests, I delivered ongoing updates to engineering and worked closely with the team to ensure accurate implementation QA’ing the UI development to preserve the intended UX.
Final deliverables included a fully validated design system with production-ready assets, along with detailed user flows, sitemaps, and interactive prototypes, each tested for clarity, feasibility, and consistency.
Impact & Outcomes
Through my leadership as Senior UX/UI designer, Chuck 2.0 achieved significant gains in user engagement, retention, and business performance.
User & Product Impact
WAU increased 5× within two weeks of launch
WAU doubled again in the following 8 weeks
D30 retention improved +10%, reaching 21%
Average session length exceeded 2 minutes
Business Impact
Supported successful fundraising of $500K+
Delivered the design system used to build future games
Continued partnership for The Last Out and The Starting 5
Marked improvement in user feedback and App Store ratings
Client:
Chuck
Partners:
UX Media
User Research, UX Design, UI Design, Mobile App Design, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Prototyping, Usability Testing, User-Centered Design, Mobile Design, App Redesign
