New In-Play Experience

Why This Project Mattered

The in-play GPS screen is the thing golfers look at on every hole, and for many, every shot. Roughly 40-70 times per round. Ours hadn't been meaningfully updated in eight years. It showed plenty of data but made it hard to actually do anything useful. The map was static and tough to read in sunlight. Fixing a misread shot meant digging through three levels of menus.

Many people just gave up and didn't fix their rounds, leading to poor data quality and thus poor insights.

Research & Discovery

We played a lot of golf using the old app and competitor apps, and spent over a week doing user interviews with golfers in our beta group.

A few things became clear early on:

Correcting shots felt like punishment. The app created its own tracking errors, then put all the burden on the user to fix them.

Office-designed interfaces don't survive the course. Sunlight, gloves, time pressure. A "clean" design that hides tools behind menus falls apart when someone has ten seconds between shots.

Anatomy of the Redesign

The redesign centers on three layers that work together: the Navigator at the top, the Contextual Tray at the bottom, and Action Buttons along the right edge. The map sits at the center.

Designed for the Course

Every visual decision traces back to a real constraint on the golf course.

Readability in any light. Key elements hit 13:1 and 8.5:1 contrast ratios, well above WCAG minimums. This was designed for direct sunlight, not a desk.

Glove-friendly targets. Every interactive element has a minimum 44px touch target. Buttons, yardage tags, hole selectors. All designed to be hit reliably with a golf glove on.

Functional color and type. Colors match real-world counterparts: green for fairway, sand for bunker. The typography hierarchy is optimized for arm's-length reading, not pixel-peeping on a monitor.

The Navigator

Same information as before: hole number, par, yardage, handicap. Completely new presentation. The navigator uses a carousel pattern so golfers can swipe between holes without leaving the map view.

We reduced the vertical footprint so more of the actual hole is visible. The header also adapts contextually: when you're in "add shot" mode, it shows that state instead of repeating navigation you don't need in the moment.

Navigator bar detail showing hole 7 with par, yardage, and handicap in a compact carousel pattern.

Live Maps

We replaced the static map with a live, interactive one. Pinch to zoom, pan to explore, tap to act. The map is the primary interface.

See a shot in the wrong spot? Tap it. Want to add one? Tap the map. This direct manipulation model eliminated what made the old app so frustrating.

Auto-zoom frames the player's current situation automatically. No manual zooming to find your ball after walking to the next shot.

Shot Management

This directly addresses the number one cancellation reason.

Add Shot is now a top-level action. Tap the button, tap the map. No menus, no modes to enter and exit.

Edit Shot is one tap away. Tap any yardage tag on the map to select the shot, then edit club, penalty, and lie from one panel. Drag the shot to reposition it right from edit mode.

The Shot List does double duty. The stroke counter button opens a slide-up list of every shot on the hole. Pull it higher to see the full round. Edit any shot property at the hole or round level.

Shot list slide-up panel showing a dual-purpose stroke counter button that reveals the full round history.

Contextual UI

The bottom tray adapts to where the golfer is on the course. Standing on the tee? It shows front, middle, and back distances. Near the green? It switches to pin distance. Pull up to expand, swipe down to collapse.

Action buttons change based on the situation. The most-used actions (set pin, add shot, view shot list) stay surfaced. Everything else lives in a tools overlay one tap away.

Reach zones overlay colored arcs on the map showing how far you can hit with each club. It turns abstract yardage into something easier to read at a glance.

Three phones showing the contextual tray adapting to different course positions: tee distances, fairway Smart Club recommendations, and green pin distance.

Reach zones showing colored arc overlays on the map indicating distances achievable with each club.

A System, Not Just Screens

Rather than designing one-off screens, we built a component system that could grow with the product. Every element (from distance badges to shot markers to tray states) is a reusable component with documented behavior.

This matters because the in-play experience isn't one screen. It's dozens of states across varying conditions. A system keeps it consistent when new features arrive.