I love football, and I love all the ways that technology lets me keep up with my favorite team. When I can't get to a TV, I rely on play-by-play services on sites like ESPN and CBS Sports to track the action on the field.
From a user experience perspective, it might seem like these sorts of services would be pretty straightforward: Something happens, and you tell people about it. But it turns out to be a tougher problem. In a live event, things are always changing: penalties happen, rulings get overturned, and instant replay can take points off the board. How do on-the-go fans expect to learn about what's happening?
Recently, I tried out two different sites that took two very different approaches to that problem. I was en route home to San Francisco, following along with my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers using ESPN's website on my mobile phone. My team had been shut out, but just before halftime, they were setting up to kick an easy field goal. Hooray! But when I refreshed the play-by-play to see the score, the update held terrible news: Players from the other team had blocked the kick and returned it for a touchdown.
Or had they?
The play-by-play stream started popping up a stream of ever-more-baffling updates. The points were taken away, but the report of the most recent play still read TOUCHDOWN. The game clock stalled. Was it halftime? Or was the game still going? Was there a penalty? Was the score still 10-0, or was it 17-0?
Here's how my screen looked about five minutes after the kick:
