Mobile Sports App Design and
Development for Tailgait
- Tailgait
- Sports & Fan Engagement
- Mobile App Design & Development
- 1 UI Designer & Developer
- 2 Months
About Tailgait
On match days, Buffalo Bills fans had trouble finding tents, food trucks, parking spots, and restrooms around Highmark Stadium. A passionate fan came up with an idea of a real-time, interactive mobile application, Tailgait, to help fellow fans locate those amenities.
The app also allows fans to list their services or facilities, thus making it a community-driven platform, active on match days.
Goal of the Project
Our primary goal was to ensure a seamless match experience for fans, helping them navigate the stadium with minimal friction.
- Deliver An Intuitive Match-Day Guide : We had to ensure that fans could instantly locate restrooms, parkings, food trucks, merchandise shops through the interactive map.
- Enable Seamless Vendor Participation : We had to provide vendors with simple, upload features to register tents or stalls and appear on the map without technical barriers.
- Support live updates and moderation : A live admin panel for maintaining entries, categories, and updating stadium listings in real-time during matches.
- Prioritize Speed & Accessibility : We had to optimize the platform for high loading, minimal taps, and easy readability, even in crowded, low-attention environments.
- Maintain visual clarity : We had to use clear icons, high-contrast elements, and a minimalistic layout to help users make confident decision.
Challenges
Designing the platform that would handle match-day frenzy presented some unique challenges. The map should load fast, and the fans and vendors wanted a frictionless experience in a time-sensitive environment.
Event-based Usage Window :
- This app is typically used only during Buffalo Bills match days, so it should have high load speed, map refresh rate, and stability.
Two Different User Journeys :
- We needed two user journeys, one for fans exploring amenities, and one for vendors listing their facilities. It was challenging for us to create an UI that supports both groups, without overwhelming either group.
Real-time Stadium Navigation :
- Users have to quickly navigate the stadium fast to access restrooms, parking spots, merchandise stores, and food trucks. This means the map should be simple and show accurate, real-time data.
Scalable Admin Workflow :
- A scalable admin workflow is necessary to:
- Approve/ Reject Submissions
- Manage Categories
- Enable/Disable listings
- Live data monitoring
Minimal Taps :
- Users will be interacting with the app in high-energy environments, which demand minimal taps, clear iconography, and low cognitive load.
Tailgait had to fill some pretty huge shoes, and with our previous sports/ event management app development knowledge, we are up for the challenge.
Our Approach
Discover: Understanding match-day behavior
For this we studied how fans behave during the match day, and navigate the stadium. We focused on how they move, the most frequently searched amenities, and how the activity shape up during peak match hours.
During our research, we found that fans first look for:
- Parking spots
- Restrooms
- Food courts
This is followed by
- Tailgait activities and
- Merchandise shops
With this information, we worked on the visual hierarchy for the interactive map.
Aside from that, we researched how requirements of vendors and users differ, as vendors want real-time visibility.
It is evident that Tailgait should be simple, capable of handling real-time data, without confusing users and vendors.
Define:
The admin panel plays a significant role in the backend, managing the vendors and users. We designed a stable and intuitive interface that allows moderators to approve or reject submissions, manage categories, and monitor live content. The dashboard is structured around real-time visibility, with clear indicators for pending uploads, active listings, and data changes. This ensures that moderators can keep the map accurate and reliable throughout the match.
Design Highlights
Tailgait is designed to bring clarity, performance, and user-centric interaction during the peak hours of match day. To achieve this, we built
- An interactive map to display key amenities- tailgates, food trucks, restrooms, parking, and merchandise in one place.
- To help fans find these amenities quickly, the map contains clear icons, clean typography, and clean visual hierarchy.
- We introduced a dual onboarding flow- vendors and fans, optimized for minimal taps.
- On the backend, admin panel UI offers clean controls for admins.
The redesigned Tailgait platform transforms match days into a seamless, organized experience, showcasing real-time amenities and empowering fans and vendors to engage effortlessly.
- Real-time Interactive Map:With these insights, our team worked on making the match-day experience frictionless for users. It started with a live, interactive map, which is the core of the app’s UX.
- Dual Onboarding Flow:We also worked on a dual onboarding flow, fans are directed towards the exploration side, while the vendors got a pathway to register or upload their details.
- Minimal Tap:The core journeys for fans and vendors – fans supported checking and searching for amenities and getting to their seats and for vendors uploading their facilities.
- Admin Panel:A dedicated admin panel that provides a complete view of all uploads, categories, and listings (enabled/disabled).
Final Product Showcase
Tailgait’s evolution is ongoing, new match-day features are being rolled out rapidly as fan needs grow and stadium operations expand. The vendor upload flow is being refined based on real-time behavioral data, ensuring smoother submissions during peak hours.
The design system is also being extended to support upcoming modules, including vendor analytics, heat-map insights, and seasonal event categories.
Tailgait is now a live platform, active, adaptive, and continuously improving. More importantly, it’s helping fans, vendors, and the entire Buffalo Bills community enjoy a more organized, connected, and engaging game-day experience.
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