Overview & Business Goal
StatsBomb started as a popular blog and Twitter account known for its detailed football data and analysis. As the team created unique datasets, they wanted to build a professional SaaS platform to help clubs, scouts, and analysts easily access and understand advanced football data.
My Role
As StatsBomb’s first Product Designer, I led the UX and visual design for both the platform and the marketing website. Working closely with product managers, engineers, and football analysts, I was responsible for:
- Creating wireframes and polished user interfaces
- Building interactive prototypes
- Developing a scalable design system
- Designing new ways to visualise football data
- Shaping the brand and website design
Design Challenge
Most competitor tools were complicated and hard to use, designed mainly for specialists. Our goal was to rethink analytics through design by:
- Making elite-level data easier to access
- Using visual design to highlight key insights quickly
- Supporting flexible workflows for scouts, coaches, and analysts
Coming in without a deep football background helped me question assumptions and simplify complex ideas, while football experts helped guide the details.
Process & Collaboration
I worked across teams with:
- Product to align on strategy and priorities
- Engineering to ensure designs could be built smoothly
- Analysts and scouts to keep the design grounded in real-world needs
We moved fast, using Google Docs for early wireframes and feedback, Sketch for visual design, and InVision for prototypes and testing. This kept our process flexible and driven by feedback.
Designing Football Data Visualisations
A big focus was turning raw data into clear, easy-to-understand visuals. Most users were football experts, not data scientists, so clarity and simplicity were key. For example, our passing pattern visualisation showed:
- Circle size for pass frequency
- Line thickness for importance
- Brand colours (like red) to draw attention
- Shapes and spacing to show clusters versus isolated passes
This made the interface quick to scan and easy to grasp—even for non-technical users.
Iterative Design & Testing
We developed the design step-by-step:
- Low-fidelity wireframes to get early feedback
- InVision prototypes for usability testing
- High-fidelity designs for final build
Regular testing with internal experts and early users helped us refine the design and make complex data clearer.
Collaboration & Success Metrics
I led the visual and interaction design, working closely with product and engineering. We based decisions on user feedback and measured success by:
- How easy the tool was to use
- How often key features were used
- Whether the tool helped users make smarter decisions
We tracked these through usage data, testing, and user feedback.
Feedback as a Design Engine
Feedback was central to every stage:
- Internal reviews improved structure and flow
- Prototypes gathered input from stakeholders and users
- Ongoing discussions helped evolve the design system over time
This cycle helped build a strong, scalable design language that grew with the platform.
Outcomes
StatsBomb is now used by elite football clubs in the UK and around the world. Users praise:
- Visual clarity
- Ease of use
- Speed in finding key insights
The passing visualisation feature was especially praised for turning complex spatial data into something instantly understandable—a great example of design making complexity simple.