TL;dr
The impact.
Our team designed and launched an in-platform sports prediction experience across Reddit’s r/NBA, r/NFL, and r/MLB, bringing live voting to 90+ sports communities with a combined audience of 30M+ fans.
My contribution consisted of research, ideation, and interaction design. I led research planning, co-facilitated user interviews, and collaborated with my team to synthesize findings across moderators and sports fans. During ideation, I facilitated team whiteboarding sessions, created the original low- and mid-fidelity concepts for the core MVP, and owned the high-fidelity design of the All Games experience.
Built directly into existing game threads, the final experience encouraged participation while preserving Reddit’s community-first experience.
User Interviews
Two audiences, one thread.
Every prediction feature serves two audiences: moderators who manage communities and fans who participate in them. To understand both perspectives, we conducted user interviews that revealed different needs, challenges, and expectations.
Those insights established the foundation for the research and highlighted where opportunities began to emerge.
Synthesis
Bridging the gap.
Comparing moderator and Redditor feedback revealed where their priorities aligned and where they didn't. The strongest opportunities addressed both audiences without adding complexity for either.
Problem Hypothesis
Three barriers shaped the product direction.
Bringing both perspectives together revealed three recurring barriers that limited participation across sports communities.
These challenges defined what the product needed to solve before we explored potential solutions.
Competitive Analysis
Learning from existing platforms.
We analyzed sports and community platforms to understand how they approached predictions, live engagement, and information hierarchy.
Rather than simply recreating existing prediction tools, I looked for opportunities to make predictions feel native to Reddit’s community-driven conversations.
The key takeaway: most sports platforms optimize for data. Reddit had an opportunity to optimize for conversation.
Solution Hypothesis
Translating problems into solutions.
The research pointed to three principles that guided the experience across both fans and moderators.
Stakeholder Input
Building through feedback.
We shared concepts with Reddit stakeholders throughout the project to validate ideas, refine interactions, and align the experience with product goals.
Feedback helped us narrow down the experience and focus on the interactions that would have the greatest impact for both fans and moderators.
Design Decision 1
Embedded live voting.
Fans can vote directly within existing game threads instead of navigating to a separate experience. Keeping predictions in context reduces friction and makes participation feel like a natural part of the live conversation.
Design Decision 2
Shared community predictions.
After voting, fans can immediately see how the rest of their community predicted the matchup. Surfacing collective results gives fans a shared way to express their opinions while keeping the focus on the community rather than individual competition.
Design Decision 3
Custom community polls.
Not every community engages with sports in the same way. Custom polls give moderators a simple, flexible way to shape predictions around their community’s interests and create more relevant ways for fans to participate.
Design Decision 4
Flexible game browsing.
Fans can switch between card and list views based on how they prefer to explore upcoming games. Cards support more visual discovery, while a compact list makes it easier to quickly scan and find relevant matchups.
Discover
A centralized game hub.
Predict
Live polls in real time.
Engage
Engagement in just a few clicks.
Customize
Polls in the community's voice.
Vote
Vote anywhere, no matter where you are.