When fantasy became reality
This is the first of a two-part series about my first season playing fantasy football, told through the lens of design.
I’m a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and now my team is out of contention for the Lombardi Trophy this year. I hope to dry my salty tears by diverting my attention away from reality to fantasy — fantasy football, that is.
On Christmas, my first season of fantasy football ended. Here’s how I did:
I’m going to miss refreshing Yahoo’s buggy StatTracker page every five minutes on game days, watching the Detroit Lions’ magical comebacks and complaining to fellow participants about how savage our 16-team league was.
Here’s what I learned this season and why it’s been the ultimate design challenge to tackle.
Without research, just give up
After reluctantly agreeing to join my office’s league, I braced myself for several weeks of in-depth research before the draft. If I was going to play fantasy, I was going to do it the right way — not just for fun and not by just blindly trusting a consultant. There were four New England Patriots fans in my league, so this was serious business.
My research consisted of several parts.
I started with The New York Times’ “A Beginner’s Guide to Fantasy Football” and The Ringer’s “The Fantasy Football Road Map.” Countless tips later, I felt my cortisol levels rise in response to my lack of knowledge and experts’ conflicting advice. If my league was a half-point-per-reception league, was I supposed to consult both standard and PPR guides? It’s common knowledge that the New York Giants’ Odell Beckham Jr. is a flame receiver who has beef with Washington Redskins’ cornerback Josh Norman, but who knows off the top of their head how many yards per game he averaged in 2016? Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s production mostly matches his elaborate touchdown celebrations, but what other TEs are integral receiving components of their teams’ offenses?
I had committed a cardinal sin of design: assuming the problem was less complex than it was. I needed help, and I needed it fast.
Panicked, I sought face-to-face expertise. I texted friends who had previously won fantasy championships. I also enlisted my sister, a former ESPN editor who has advised her friends on their fantasy teams in the past, and my dad, who assimilated into American culture by watching NFL games in his Ph.D. candidate days. My dad spent the afternoon before my draft reviewing a document detailing my strategy over video chat, advising me on my preferred draftees.
After the call, I analyzed all the information I had collected to date. I pulled up FantasyPros’ list for comparison and made finishing touches to my document based on the advice I had received. FantasyPros combines the opinions of many experts, so I felt like I was in good hands.
It wasn’t until near the end of the season when I finally learned my lesson. When designing a fantasy team, always be skeptical (especially in the research phase).
While my dad and sister are giant repositories of sports knowledge, knowledge simply doesn’t translate to robust fantasy strategy. I had also overlooked bias — as in design, biases that can affect your fantasy approach are essential to consider. My dad is extremely biased toward “older and wiser” players, so all the young’uns (including all of the breakout rookies like Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt) moved down my ranks.
Lastly, I tested my strategy in a mock draft the night before the real draft. My lack of specific knowledge wasn’t the only reason I was nervous on draft day. For context, here’s the draft interface:
Over 12 hours later, the interface was still haunting me. Here’s why:
The user interface is cognitive overload
Even if you know everything about building the perfect team, that’s only half of it. Let’s also not forget that my state of mind during the draft was an adrenaline-fueled frenzied mess, so comprehending anything required more effort than usual. Anyone technically savvy will eventually find their way around the interface, but probably not your retired grandpa who wants to play fantasy for the first time. If you don’t know football abbreviations and statistics in general, you will also struggle.
Striking the right balance of information to show will always be a fine line. Yahoo needs to empower its fantasy participants with stats, but it also needs to keep things approachable, comprehensible and fun.
People do play fantasy for fun, right?
The colors add visual baggage
In case the seven different parts weren’t enough, the dark background makes the interface heavier. While the gray clearly contrasts with the main queue of players, several elements compete for my attention. Even if I ignore the right column, the photo overlay at the top catches my eye, along with the dynamic shifts in the left column and the clock.
Accent colors highlight key pieces of information (for example, if a player is suspended) but do not draw significant focus.
Red, commonly used in error states, outlines the bottom of the clock when it’s my turn to nominate a pick or when time to bid on a player is running out, causing my palms to sweat profusely.
It’s far from being like the real draft
While I appreciate its effort to make the draft more accessible by adding sound to the timer, Yahoo’s attempt at making the draft exciting and compelling for a 16-team league fell flat. As brands try to make online experiences as realistic as possible, sound becomes increasingly important. The timer is a start, but there are undoubtedly other components that could make the draft more robust and omnichannel, similar to the actual draft. Our draft spanned three time zones, but it would be great if the draft made us feel like we were in the same room.
Unlike the real NFL draft where viewers see wide-eyed rookies flashing smiles while holding jerseys, our fantasy draft was a bumpy 2 1/2 hours filled with controversial bids and fickle Wi-Fi. The interface made me angsty about picking my team rather than excited. The database of players and stats, overbearing timer and use of colors were uninviting. Two hours in, people drafting in our San Francisco, New York and London offices were mentally exhausted.
Nonetheless, I was ready for the season. Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer and Lions QB Matthew Stafford were reliable steals. I splurged $77 for Steelers RB Le’Veon Bell, but I had enough money at the end to pick up Tampa Bay Buccaneers TE Cam Brate, my high school classmate. I was thriving, projected to be second in the league based on the draft.
Little did I know, picking a great team was just the beginning. Everyone was in for a dramatic season filled with significant injuries, influential suspensions and unexpected playmakers.
Read the second part of this series, where I highlight all the in-season drama.
