Back9

Contributions

Despite dozens of golf apps on the market, none felt built for the golfer's actual experience. Apps tracked scores but missed the social layer — the banter, the rivalries, the post-round stories that make golf what it is. Users were either stuck with pencil-and-paper, or wrestling with overly complex tools mid-round.

• Manual scorecard friction: Players fumbled with pencil-and-paper or overly complex digital tools mid-round.

• No community layer: The social dimension of golf — friend groups, rivalries, shared memories — was completely absent from existing apps.

• Post-round recall: Players wanted to remember their rounds, but existing tools gave raw data, not stories or memorable moments.

• Handicap confusion: Most players didn't understand their handicap or how to meaningfully track it over time.

I conducted interviews and survey research with golfers across skill levels — from casual weekend players to competitive club members — across 3 rounds of testing with 20 participants total.

Competitive Analysis

I analysed Arccos Caddie, 18Birdies, Golfshot, and TheGrint to map what features exist, where they succeed, and where they fail to deliver the emotional experience golfers actually want.

Personas

Research distilled into two primary personas representing the core user spectrum — the casual weekend golfer seeking simplicity, and the competitive club member who wants depth and bragging rights.

David, 34

Weekend Casual · 3× / Month

"I just want to track my round without fumbling with a pencil. And brag to my buddies after."

Diane, 52

Club Member · Competitive

"My handicap matters. I need an app that keeps up with my game — not the other way around."

Information Architecture

I mapped the full app structure — tab navigation, round flows, social layers, and settings — before a single screen was designed. This prevented costly restructuring later in the process.

Wireframes

Low and mid-fidelity wireframes let me explore layout, hierarchy, and core interactions before committing to visual design. Multiple rounds of iteration happened here — not in high-fidelity.

Design System

A full component library in Figma — typography scale, color tokens, button states, form elements, cards, and navigation patterns — ensuring every screen speaks the same visual language.

High-Fidelity Design

Final screens combining the research, architecture, and design system into a polished, production-ready UI. Every screen maps to a real user need identified in research.

• Moving the primary action to the bottom nav thumb zone drove a +34% increase in tap rate — discovered in round 3 of testing.

• 20 participants tested across 3 iterative rounds, with each round sharpening the previous design decisions.

• Full production iOS app built in React Native with Supabase backend, currently in development.

• Complete Figma design system delivered — component library, typography scale, color tokens, and all interaction states.

The most important lesson from Back9: research is not a phase — it's continuous. The +34% tap rate didn't come from intuition or the first design. It came from round 3 of testing. That finding only emerged from watching real users struggle with a placement that felt "obvious" on paper. Design without testing is just speculation.

• Data over intuition: The biggest win came from round 3, not the initial design. Testing revealed what whiteboard sessions couldn't.

• Social is the product: The emotional dimension — stories, rivalries, shared memories — was undervalued by existing apps. That gap was the opportunity.

• Build, test, iterate: Three rounds of testing produced a better product than any single "final" design would have. The process is the product.

• Claude as collaborator: Using Claude for schema reviews and design critiques throughout development kept every output sharper and more defensible.