The Junior Invitational is the most prestigious event in junior golf. Every year the best junior golfers from around the world battle it out at Sage Valley Golf Club in Graniteville, South Carolina for a chance at winning the glorious title. JI came to us for a complete design overhaul of their website and branding.
The first thing that stood out to me about their current site was the split main navigation. It had a horizontal and a vertical navigation competing against each other for attention. Figuring out which one to choose first would be very confusing for the user. In addition, the information architecture did not make sense—making finding important content somewhat cumbersome. The lackluster panoramic view of the golf course on the home page offered no call-to-action to engage and entice users to explore the site, nor did it capture the energy and vitality of these young golfers.
For this reason, a redesign from the ground up was vital in order to best reflect the site’s main audience: the players, the media, friends and family.
Site before redesign.
The first step was to determine user goals. Preliminary research consisting of past video interviews revealed that although practice and winning means a lot to these young golfers, they also come to Sage Valley to have a good time and socialize. They make friends, play video games, and tweet. Further research was needed in order to understand user pain points and what we could do to improve it.
I conducted a survey of twelve participants consisting of basic questions regarding the old site. This allowed us to hear first-hand what players had to say and formulate ways to improve the experience. For example, when asked what would they change about the current site, some respondents called out the need for more information overall. When asked what they found most frustrating about the site, some respondents said the mobile experience should be better. These respondents were specifically discouraged by the slow loading times.
This score survey helped us solidify our speculations that there was room for improvement on the site.
Sitemap.
Low-fidelity wireframes.
The Leaderboard was a primary attraction to the site, especially during tournament week. We wanted to make sure that it was always visible and accessible across all devices.
High-fidelity wireframes.
One of the main reasons people visited the site was to view the Leaderboard, primarily during tournament week. We wanted to make sure tha it was always visible and accessible across all devices.
Leaderboard interaction.
Highlighting the News page was important to provide easy access to a plethora of media coverage. On this page you would find news articles, select photos for download and live JI tweet cards as a way to keep content relevant and fresh.
News page.
The Course page would offer an interactive map, along with panoramic images and description of each hole.
Map interaction.
The Players page would feature all the players and their nationalities with the ability to search for each individual player.
The Players page.
In a short period of time, we were able to not just improve and revitalize a website, but an entire brand. While I was primarily responsible for the logo and website redesign, I also worked with the print team in creating collateral materials to help further the Junior Invitational image.
Logo design.
This was a fun and exciting project I was fortunate to work on. The most gratifying part was listening to the positive feedback from the client and the greater accessibility we have provided JI’s user base. Tournament Director Elaine Barnhill says “The new Junior Invitational website gives us an improved communication tool and a more powerful platform for sharing information before, during and after the tournament.”
Final design.
Visit Website NEXTDesigned at Jackson Marketing Group.