Boyd Chute-Out Rodeo App

This mobile application allowed rodeo participants to look up information on the Boyd Chute-Out and its participants in the days leading up to the event, as well as enabled them to keep track of the events and scores in real time.

The biggest feature was a scoring mini-game, in which users could give each participant a score, and compare theirs against the real score from the judges. Participants could see how they measured up against others on screens around the arena, and could win a prize if they came out on top.

Official Website Promotional Video


About the Project

I think it would be fair to say we were all a little overwhelmed when we were handed this project. We had never been to a rodeo before, and the only thing we had to go on was the slogan "A New Way To Rodeo", so we felt we lacked a good frame of reference for the event. With no local rodeos occurring for a few more months, I took over the technical writer role and begin work on the statement of work (SOW).

In order to create the SOW, I sat down and spoke with leadership about their expectations for the mobile app, and the event itself. From this, I learned the following set of expectations:
  1. Users had to be able to follow the daily event schedule and participant scores in real-time
  2. Updates need to be made to the app imagery and content daily without needing a new push to the app store
  3. The app's primary purpose was to encourage locals and tourists to attend their very first rodeo
Based on this and what we knew of the company's existing products, we were able to determine we would need sections for educating people about rodeos, purchasing tickets, the schedule, and the scores, along with standard areas for messages from our sponsor and legal verbiage due to state mandates and gaming board requirements. We also knew we would need to manage this application via the company's existing content management system to meet the real-time update requirements.

Open PDF: Statement Of Work

With our expectations clearly laid out, I set to work on flowcharts to illustrate various functions that would be found in the app. Our developer had assured us he would be able to work on this functionality independently of a finalized design, and due to how long the development was likely to take, we worked on the different components in tandem.

Clicking on any of the below images will open up a gallery that allows you to scroll through the images at full-size.



Realizing the project had already far exceeded our original scope, the project manager decided our next step was to provide further documentation. Instead of revisiting the SOW, I was tasked with writing a vision document. Since there were no local rodeos in town I could attend to get the information I needed, I pulled up videos of rodeos and interviews with judges. I also took a poll of the entire office (400+ people) to see if anyone was well-versed in rodeos. Thankfully, I found someone familiar with them, and they were able to walk me through footage of rodeos similar to this event.

Open PDF: Vision Document

Armed with new knowledge, I took over the role of UX designer and began working on sketches, followed by low fidelity wireframes. Using Adobe Photoshop due to company preference, I created screens for the login and registration process, the homepage, the navigation, and other pages I had created flowcharts for. With the assistance of my newfound rodeo resource, I also started working on screens for real-time scoring, and additional mini-games (which were eventually cut from the final product).

The below image can be clicked on to open up a gallery. Overall, we did end up with close to 70 wireframes for the application, but in the interest of optimization I only included the most important ones in this set.



While I did provide input on the color scheme, font styles, and overall design of the application, our graphic designer turned my low fidelity wireframes into high fidelity ones by creating custom buttons and badges to add more personality to the app. Once all assets had been cut and created, our developer set up a functional prototype via Ionic for us to present to leadership.

I was asked once more to be a technical writer and create our final design documentation for the product to present alongside our prototype. I cleaned up the vision document, added more information on the users and roles, and included screenshots of our wireframes in order to assemble this.

Open PDF: Design Document

Our dedication to the product didn't stop once we successfully launched it to both the Android and iOS stores. Because of the real-time features, but lack of an automated updating system, our team attended the rodeo and manually updated the application each time the scores were announced.

In the end, though we deemed the rodeo and mobile application to be a success based on user feedback collected at the event, we had been able to pinpoint issues when doing live scoring that we had not discovered during our testing. Despite our research, we hadn't realized each "ride" to be scored lasted only eight seconds and there were no breaks in between. This was too small of a window to enable the scoring functionality for, so we had to make changes rapidly to be ready for the second day of the event. We also continued maintaining and improving the app when the rodeo was not going on.

After three years, the Boyd Chute-Out was discontinued, and the app was removed from the app store. The only references left to this application are the website and promotional video, both linked to above.
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