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Project Overview

"Footy on your iPhone!"

Aussie Rules live is the hero app for the SportsMate Mobile brand. The number 1 sports iPhone Application in Australia since the App Store's inception (2008). Aussie Rules Live provides its fans with relevant, timely and most importantly, LIVE footy scores. Wherever you are, you can always rely on Aussie Rules Live to give you live scores and fast.

Organisation

SportsMate Mobile

Team

Patrick Fitzgerald - user experience & product developer
Nick Forge - head iOS developer
Rafif Yalda - iOS developer
Alan van Roemburg - designer
Daniel Kagan - content

Project Brief

If you love footy and have an iPhone, chances are that you have downloaded Aussie Rules Live. The project brief was simple, create an App that presenting live scores lightening fast to the user. In essence, the App was initially created for our own purpose as we had no idea the App Store was going to take off like it did.

In it's 3rd year, Aussie Rules Live is the number 1 sports App (3 years in a row) in Australia and includes news, player stats, fantasy scores, ladder, team lists and much more.

Project Innovation / Need

We believe our innovation lives in the back-end of our application. The server side work is extremely complex, allowing for the App to display a score as soon as we receive it from our data supplier. Our key objective is to adhere to our 'Live' statement and constant tweaking and work is done on our server to achieve this goal. Furthermore, the way we handle traffic spikes during a Friday and Saturday night game has allowed Aussie Rules Live to fulfill the need for our users when out and about.

In addition, 2011 saw the introduction to 'live sockets', which allows the user to connect to a live game, removing the need to refresh the App for the latest score. In other words, the score is instantly updated on the users phone as soon as there is a score.

User Experience

User experience is key to Aussie Rules Live. With so much content that needs to be presented, we didn't want to bombard the user with stats, images and useless football paraphernalia. In addition, we are restricted with what we can use due to Telstra's digital contract with the AFL. For example, team jumpers are out of bounds.

We spent 3 months wire-framing the application and 3 months designing. In 2010, we were ridiculed due to over-designing and tiny presentation of live score and stats. Hence, in 2011, our key objective was to present our information in a clear and clean manner.

It worked.

Project Marketing

Our most important marketing allie is Apple App's Store. Our number 1 position has always been advantageous for our App. We also sprooked outside each Melbourne game for the first 3 weeks of the season, handing out flyers about our App.

Furthermore, we have a connect link to our users via Twitter that allows us to constantly communicate to them, plus, we have a contact form in the App that encourages comments, questions and complaints.