Qualitative Discovery, Heuristic Content Audit & Product Strategy: Coordinate Sport
Project
Role: UX Researcher
Scope: Qualitative User Interviews, Heuristic Content Audit, Information Architecture & Product Strategy
Target Domain: Activity Management SaaS, Workforce & Compliance Systems, B2B/Public Sector Ecosystems
Goal
Project Overview & Business Context
The Challenge
Coordinate Sport provides a SaaS platform for the children’s activities sector (sports clubs, after-school programs, and holiday clubs for ages 6 months to 18 years) to manage HR, coaches, scheduling, payroll, and financial forecasting. Despite strong platform utility, the sector suffered from an entrenched perception of informality in coaching (“man with footballs in a van”), while smaller operators relied heavily on manual spreadsheets and lacked awareness of how dedicated SaaS could streamline compliance, forecasting, and operations.
Objective
Conduct mixed-methods UX research, combining qualitative sector and customer interviews with a comprehensive heuristic website audit, to uncover core user drivers, reduce cognitive friction, align messaging with operator mental models, and inform product and market expansion.
Research Methodology Framework
To build an empirical understanding of sector barriers, user workflows, and digital comprehension, a four-phase qualitative research strategy was executed:
| Phase | Focus Area | Methods & Frameworks Applied |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: Heuristic Website & Content Audit | Assessing site structure, readability, error density (grammatical and technical), and cognitive load across user acquisition pathways. | A heuristic evaluation, content inventory audit, and search intent/discoverability analysis. |
| Phase 2: Existing Product User Interviews | Evaluating real-world platform usage, pre-adoption pain points, and workflow gaps among active SaaS customers. | Contextual user interviews exploring legacy system friction, spreadsheet bottlenecks, and desired product improvements toward the creation of case studies. |
| Phase 3: Qualitative Sector Leader Discovery | Investigating macro operational challenges, growth ambitions, and barriers to technology adoption across the activities sector. | Semi-structured interviews with sector founders and directors (via internal discovery and thought-leadership podcast panels) to map industry maturity and support needs. (Allowing them to market their service) |
| Phase 4: Information Architecture & Value Translation | Aligning platform positioning and taxonomy with validated user mental models and institutional compliance needs. | Persona-driven taxonomy restructuring, plain-English microcopy optimisation, and multimodal content structuring. |
Key Behavioural & Product Findings
Finding 1: Emotional & Institutional Drivers Behind Tech AdoptionFinding 1: Emotional & Institutional Drivers Behind Tech Adoption (Legitimacy)
- The Issue: Semi-structured interviews with sector leaders revealed that technology adoption was driven by an acute desire for professionalism, institutional legitimacy, and scalability, particularly when pitching to schools and local authorities, rather than mere administrative convenience.
- UX Impact: Product positioning and onboarding workflows needed to signal operational rigour and compliance readiness (e.g., statutory PPA time rules, safeguarding, and financial forecasting) to overcome legacy sector stereotypes.
Finding 2: Repeatable Operational Frameworks (Scalability)
- The Issue: Semi-structured interviews with sector leaders revealed that operators were actively scaling via multi-employer consortiums, national partnerships, and repeatable operational frameworks, with greater complexity as they scaled. Broader systemic bottlenecks showed a complex need for institutional compliance, multi-site data collection and managing a remote workforce.
- UX Impact: Product development needed to take into consideration forecasting and HR, with internal and external access points as well as compliance measures.
Finding 3: Spreadsheet Fatigue vs. Perceived SaaS Complexity
- The Issue: Customer interviews highlighted a sharp divide between large operators using costly bespoke systems and smaller providers trapped in manual spreadsheets. Many smaller operators avoided SaaS due to perceived lack of complexity and lack of clarity around how a single platform unified scheduling, HR, and payroll specific to the sector.
- UX Impact: Reducing perceived cognitive load required shifting communication from fragmented feature lists to clear operational outcomes (“More Impact, Less Work”) supported by plain-English explanations and multimodal (video + written) guides.
Finding 4: Adjacency Opportunities Unlocked by Qualitative Discovery
- The Issue: Cross-sector discovery interviews revealed that adjacent activity verticals, specifically performing arts organisations, shared identical scheduling, compliance, and workforce management pain points as traditional full-range activity providers.
- UX Impact: Qualitative research insights directly informed product and business development strategy, validating service expansion into new activity verticals without requiring major architectural overhauls.
Strategic Recommendations & Measurable Outcomes
Translating qualitative discovery and heuristic audit findings into product and information architecture strategy delivered substantial business and UX outcomes:
- Direct Product Expansion into Adjacent Verticals: Leveraged interview insights to expand platform positioning and onboarding workflows to include performing arts organisations alongside traditional sports providers.
- Restructure Information Architecture Around Operational Outcomes: Overhauled site structure and taxonomy using plain English, front-loaded scannability, and persona-aligned pathways (separating local authority compliance needs from day-to-day club scheduling), achieving Page 1 Google rankings for core activity-management SaaS search terms.
- Scale Market Penetration & International Footprint: Validated value propositions and reduced acquisition friction, supporting platform adoption across approximately 70% of the UK activities sector and enabling expansion into six international markets, including the UK, Australia, and Spain.
