The International Tennis Federation, Tennis’ global governing body, approached Clock with an exciting opportunity to improve the experience for professional tennis players to manage and enter ITF tournaments globally using its internal IPIN system.

The players’ peripatetic, global lifestyle means the administration of managing their busy schedule can be arduous. The aim of the new IPIN system was to make their lives much simpler so that they could concentrate on what they do best; play tennis! Clock was responsible for rethinking and redefining the entire User Experience, Design as well as deliver the technical Front-end for ITF’s tech team to implement.

Creating the right User Experience

When redefining the User Experience (UX) for any project, the starting point is always the user but in the case of the IPIN project, the demographic is aged between 12-80 years old and is international. This represented a different kind of challenge. Our approach to the UX was to therefore focus on actions. Focussing on actions allowed us to create key user motivations and split them into primary and secondary action groups. Our research found that primary actions included: enter and withdraw from tournaments. Secondary actions included: Check schedule, check ranking, check acceptance lists for tournaments amongst many other things. This approach on actions gave the teams the basis on which to build the experiences for all players.

Teamwork makes the experience work

The ITF is a large organisation that comprises many tours that sit under its umbrella, including: Pros, Seniors, Juniors, Wheelchair and Beach. Each tour has its own team and own ways of working. It was essential for us to work closely with each tour alongside ITF’s tech team to create clear business logic. This ensured a unified, cohesive approach that allowed us to extend the thinking across all types of tournaments without custom logic having to be built specifically for each tour. For the ITF’s technical team, one of the biggest benefits has been the fact that they only have to maintain one variation of the system.

Designed and built to scale

Once the User Experience and architecture were defined, the design team created an extensible design system that could be applied across any platform and could be scaled to include new functionality in the future. Clock’s developers leveraged Storybook to build out the front-end in an interactive environment, thereby allowing our design team to continually perform QA (Quality Assurance) as the build progressed. Once we were happy with the built components, our code was pushed into an ITF owned repository for their tech team to pick up and apply as they needed to.

Game, Set and Match

When choosing a partner to deliver the IPIN system Clock’s approach stood out. Their understanding of our requirements and the business as a whole made for an easy working relationship which delivered a great result. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to anyone.

Brendan Feeney, Project Manager, International Tennis Federation

The ITF successfully implemented Clock’s front-end and launched the new IPIN system in September. Players’ primary actions: to enter and withdraw from tournaments, can now be achieved in two clicks, versus seven with the previous legacy system. A vastly improved mobile experience also means players are able to manage their busy schedule on the go, without having to reach for their laptop in an airport lounge.

Being a tennis player has gotten just a little bit easier, if only outside of the court!

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