Fan zone
Fan engagement via an app for football fans: Turns football's dead time into the best part of watching the match.
1. The Spark
I was watching a Premier League match during a slow VAR check, the kind of dead stretch where fans check their phones and tune out. That moment got me thinking about what it would take to make the boring bits the whole point instead. That question became Fanzone, a companion app concept for the Premier League, built as a personal project to explore what sports engagement could look like if halftime was worth staying for.
2. The Brief
To keep this a real design exercise, I held myself to the standards a brief would actually enforce which is a compelling, current UI, clear information hierarchy, one genuinely unique feature, something tailored to how fans actually behave, and accessibility treated as a requirement from day one.
3. Research
Football is the most watched sport in the world, and 92% of fans fall between ages 16 and 54, a wide enough range that "the fan" is really several different people. Research into sports fandom points to belonging as the core driver, shared identity and shared moments matter as much as the score. Two personas grounded the design in that idea. Jeremy, 26, is a loyal fan who goes to games with friends and wants match days to feel more interactive. Jasmine, 48, has been coming to matches since her dad first brought her and now brings her own kids, but her teenagers get bored during breaks and drift to their phones, breaking the shared moment she's trying to protect.
4. The Solution
Fanzone gives fans new ways to interact with each other and the club, whether they're in the stadium or at home. It turns halftime and downtime into moments people look forward to, and it creates one shared experience across thousands of fans watching at once.
5. Home Screen
After onboarding, fans land on a homepage built around what matters to them, their team's match if it's on, or the next fixture if not. Other live matches, pre event shows, and headline news sit below. The same information hierarchy carries through every other screen.
6. Polls and Trivia
During breaks, real time trivia and polls appear on a schedule. Fans compete for points that stack up over a season and can be redeemed for prizes. Trivia runs on a tight 10 second timer so fans answer from memory instead of searching. Polls let fans share predictions in real time, with live vote counts building a shared read on the match as it unfolds. This is the feature built for Jasmine, something the whole family can jump into together during a lull.
7. Fan Footage
This is the flagship feature. A social style feed made entirely by fans, for fans. People record and share real time clips from wherever they're watching, filtered by location or match, so a fan who missed a goal because they looked away can instantly pull up someone else's angle. It's raw and personal in a way broadcast footage never is, unique camera angles, unfiltered reactions, fan added audio.
8. Platform Affordance
Fans don't spend all their time in one app, so Fanzone extends past its own screens. iOS Live Activities keep fans updated on scores directly from the lock screen, and the interface leans into iOS's Liquid Glass language so those updates feel native rather than bolted on. One tap and a fan is back inside the match.
9. Accessibility
These were considered for accessibility –– White text over video sits on a subtle dark gradient so it stays legible no matter what's happening in the footage behind it. Bottom navigation uses a heavier frosted glass treatment with icon labels for clarity. Every interactive element meets WCAG 2.5.5 with 44 by 44 pixel touch targets and a logical reading order. Looking ahead, exploring Field of Vision style hardware that helps blind fans follow a match by tracking ball position, paired with live in-app commentary would be ideal
10. Design System
A proper system sits underneath the screens: text and colour styles, button variants, nav states, tabs, team badges. It started as a moodboard and rough sketches before touching Figma components.
11. What's Next
Two pieces didn't make it into this round. Matches would go deeper into any fixture, lineups, live stats, player performance. 12th Man reframes the profile section entirely, not a settings menu but a way to make every fan feel like part of the squad, with preferences and policy living quietly inside it.
12. Reflection
Fanzone started as an idle thought during a slow match and so I explored and designed this concept. The sharpest idea in the whole project was Fan Footage, and it came from noticing something ordinary which is fans reaching for their phones the second the ball goes out of play.