Football Experience Design

In class we had our final critique. We got feedback from the other groups as well as Professor Pannafino. This is the feedback we got:

• The mounting is sloppy (We agree)
• The larger size is good and Professor said we went out of our way to make sure it was legible and laid out well.
• The floating football is not needed.
• The key is nice and large and is right by the beginning so people won’t miss it.
• The key could be improved by differentiating between a color key and a shape key.
• Maybe add more color on the title or in other places because the background is stark white, or make the background a color.
• The colors for offense and defence worked really well.
• The coach’s decision is a great way to add in strategy that a new player may want to be aware of but may not need to know everything about. It is much improved from last critique and now works with the flow of everything.
• Maybe integrate the field and person a bit more, have the flow chart go over the graphics to show the positions of things instead of having the image next to the flow chart.
• The arrow for affecting the other team could be used more.
• The kick could benefit from some perspective.
• Maybe add the field goals to the graphic of the field.
• There is a clear start and there aren’t any issues with the overall flow of the chart, just some graphical improvements.

Overall the feedback that we got was mostly about the graphics, and people said our chart flowed well and made sense. We had no research issues or any wrong information on our flowchart. We just need to make some aesthetic improvements. Our team worked well together and we are happy with our final result.

Thursday

Rebecca

I took into account all of the feedback that we got and I worked on making our flowchart flow better. I got rid of any diagonal arrows. I also reworked the flow of the 4th down part of our flowchart because people were having a hard time understanding what their options were. I also added in the spots where the line jumps over so that way people don’t think it is connected. I also added the “coaches decide” area so that way people know that the coaches choose the play so they don’t need to know all the specific terminology but they still can see how a coach chooses their plays. I also made it more integrated into the flow chart because people were confused about the path to get there. I also added in a field with some labels so people better understand what everything is. We can move it around later.

Steph

I created a new part of the flowchart that shows how the timing in football is broken down because we were missing that part.

Friday

Rebecca, Kristen, and Sha’kir met for 4 hours and finished implementing all of the suggestions.

Rebecca

I worked on making all of the arrows smaller so they don’t look so chunky like Pannafino suggested. I also laid it out so it fits on a 36 x 48 in poster, so everything needed to get moved around a bit. I moved around the layout of the top portion with the equipment, time, and field so it all fits and the graphics can go with their flow chart areas. I also added in Steph’s flow chart so people know how the timing in the game works. I made a new key and changed to football field to have yellow end zones because the scoring color is yellow. I created a football graphic.

Kristen

I worked on creating icons to go along with the flow chart. I created a player so that we could label all the different equipment that they wear, as well as a player kicking a field goal. Pannafino suggested we add a coin to the coin toss area so I made that as well.

Sha’Kir

I worked on making a visual layout of what an offensive and defensive formation would look like on the field. I chose the shotgun offensive formation and the cover 2 defensive formation. That way someone who has never played football before has a visual of how a play starts.

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In class today we had guests go through our flow charts. Here is their feedback.

Sophie:

• Differentiating American Football from Football was good, maybe add American to the title.
• Try putting the field in the field or labelling the field with the different parts.
• Padding vs equipment
• Easy to go through
• Integrate visuals more, goal post and helmets.
• Coin toss incorporate a coin?
• Easy to go through
• Clear about actions vs decisions.
• Choose play types could be clearer, didn’t immediately go to those areas – Move bottom part down and bring those closer in.
• Concise sentence.
• Felt like it was missing positions, clock, and how to end the game.

Colin:

• Started at the top
• What is a girdle? Maybe add a cup? in padding
• Went to defense first instead of starting at the top of everything.
• Explain the defense types, confused what the types are and why they matter. (maybe use an asterisk instead of pointing to the area)
• Indirect arrows not clear
• How do you gain 10 yards? not clear. is it a question instead of a decision?
• Clarify where the arrows overlap, gets confusing
• Explain what a 2 point conversion is and how to get those points.
• How does the defense gain possession of the ball?
• How does the game end?

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• Maybe make the field bigger so I can see what things are.
• Defense types and images?
• why does it matter how wide the field is?
• Didn’t immediately go down, went left to right
• Kick vs receive is confusing

Penny:

• Went to the key first, then went to the beginning of the game
• skipped play type, (for offense and defense)
• Play type needs to be moved to fit in better
• 4th down is confusing and needs to be clarified
• the downs make sense
• Missing how to win/quarters and timing.

Korin:

• Words help map it out, the arrows are easy to see
• Started at the beginning of the game, knew where to start.
• Colors helped differentiate between offense and defense.
• Downs are mapped out well, every scenario is there.
• Change it so choosing plays stands out, or get rid of it.
• Sentence is easy and explains it
• Key helps to know what shapes mean what
• Make the start bigger
• Make sure the arrows touch the boxes

Molly:

• Started at how to play
• Looked at the key
• Padding is broken down easily
• Move everything down so equipment and field is above the start of the game so I don’t get ahead of myself
• Not sure what to do with the width of the field. Maybe not needed?
• Kick ball and receive ball is confusing, clarify.
• Downs make sense, just clarify 4th down options.
• Looked at the play types last and didn’t understand them.

Megan: (knew about football)

• Kick and receive makes sense.
• Went to play types in correct order.
• Started at how to play and skipped field and equipment, later went back to it.
• Explain Girdle, and other vocab words somewhere
• Maybe the formations in the play types are not needed.
• How does defense gain possession of the ball? Steps for that need to be shown
• How to get the extra point or 2 point conversion
• Formations don’t make sense, who runs right or left?
• Needs timing and overtime?
• Take out the play types?

Emily:

• Sentence makes sense and is a good introduction to the game.
• having the padding break down into separate parts is helpful.
• Doesn’t understand what the things are under the field part.
• Dotted lines aren’t clear.
• What are running and passing plays
• Having the parenthesis under snap ball helped.
• Having the points under how you score them helps
• How do you get the points?
• 4th down is not clear
• As you follow it it makes sense

Pannafino:

• Fix the graphics, less cliparty, connect it more to the chart.
• Add in timing and clarify things
• Fix the arrows, too chunky, no diagonals, keep it consistent
• Label fields and people?
• Add in timing and how to win
• Add in coach and how coaches choose plays

Pictures

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Friday

Rebecca, Steph, and Sha’kir met for 2 and a half hours.

Rebecca

I worked on completing the flow chart in black and white and discussing with Steph color options on how everything will flow together. I completed the flow of how the downs work. I also worked on creating a style with the boxes and Started implementing it.

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STEPH

Outside of class I finished up unifying our flowchart and fixing the text and color. We also got feedback from Alyson and she thought it was definitley an improvement from what we had on D2L.

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Tomorrow we will meet up again and work on fixing any other minor things and getting our tiling together for Wednesday class. We also found our 4 outside students to bring in.

SATURDAY

All 4 of us (Kristen, Rebecca, Steph, and Sha’kir) met for 4 hours.

Kristen

The style guide needed some work, because we needed something that was more intriguing to look at and more unique instead of generic fonts and arrows. I worked on update the color scheme Rebecca had updated and then I worked on creating new arrows and fixing the new fonts so everything could be cohesive. Then I created a referee and whistle so we had some more helpful icons. After that I updated the Offensive Plays part of the Flowchart, so it was up to date.

STEPH

Today I worked on updating more within the flowchart to make it more uniform. I adjusted all the boxes to be all the same size and all the font to be the same size. We also switched the font from Montserrat to Roboto.

Rebecca

I worked on compiling everyone’s work and fixing the flowchart. I added Steph’s work to the main flow chart and worked on clarifying all of the paths.

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Today in class we had in class work time to discuss with our group and figure out things we could do to improve our flowcharts, figure out color schemes, and iconography.

STEPHANIE

Today I started working on going through our D2L thread on our flowcharts, and narrowing down feedback from other classmates about what we need to fix to improve it.

• Off the bat, the main suggestion overall was to create one big flowchart instead of different ones.
• We also need to have one key, and keep everything concise and similar regarding arrows and other visual indicators.
• We were suggested to add other maps such as positions, equipment needed, and just scoring information in general.
• We need to keep our information simple for people to understand because of the complexity of the sport.
• Keep the same style throughout the entire flowchart.
• Make the flowchart into one PDF file.
• Get rid of some of the more complex information.

I also started working on figuring out our explainer sentence about the sport.

Football is a sport played on a 120 yard long field involving 2 teams of 11 players, who are trying to move the ball to the opposite ends of the end zone to score a touchdown.

Kristen & Shakir

Shakir and I worked on creating a color scheme using coolers.co. We went through a few rounds of color schemes before piecing together the one we have on this style guide. We went with this one because it feels very football like, but doesn’t make you think of a specific team. Another thing we did was choose fonts for Headers, sub-headers, titles, and sub-text and we went with “Freshman” for the header and the Montserrat family for the Sub-header, title, and sub-text. Finally we came up with a style for the flowchart as well. Red is for offense and blue for defense. The Start/End and decisions are not filled in with color, but the Actions are filled in. The arrows are a simple style both solid and dotted to show direct and indirect actions.

Rebecca

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In class I worked on combining all of the flowcharts into one large flowchart because we were behind on that. I completed mapping out the field, equipment, Offensive play type, and the beginning of the game.

STEPHANIE & Rebecca

The two of us got the chance to meet up with the head coach of Millersville football. He shared a lot of great information with us.

What penalties do you see the most?

Holding penalty- Illegally holding the opposing player.

Pass interference- When the defender throws the ball you cannot make contact with the player trying to catch the ball. You cannot grab them. You can block the ball but cannot grab the player.

How do you prevent your players from getting penalties?

By teaching proper technique. Teach them how to block properly and keep their hands inside and arms tight. Certain penalties aren’t physical- for example being offsides. We also study other teams to learn how to beat them.  

What is the purpose of the hash marks?

Hash marks depend on the level of football that is played. The ball will get moved to the center of the field where the hashmark is, but is the line where the player gets tackled, but it is just moved to the center of the field. 

What is one thing about football people don’t usually understand?

Football is a very complicated sport. A lot of strategy and thinking goes into the sports. People sometimes think that football plays can’t think or be smart. That’s a common misconception. There is a lot of information that can just go into a single play.

How do you prepare your players for game day?

We have meetings, weight lifting sessions to keep their body in shape and hae treatment hours for injuries. We spend 20 hours a week normally prepping. Players also get study hours to keep their grades up.  

How do you coach during a game?

Manage the game and both the offensive and defensive staff. Overseeing the big picture of the game. A difference between football and other sports is the time meeting outside of practice such as film review or game plan strategy. 

What does a game look like for a player?

In college level play one position- either offense or defense. Do your position as well as your possibly can. The players will try to guess what the other team plans on doing. 

Do games often go into overtime?

Not really, it is considered rare.

Average amount of touchdowns you see per game?

Depends how good your team is! When I worked at Shippensburg, we averaged about 6 touchdowns per game. We have a lot of freshmen on Millersville’s team. I wouldn’t trade coming to Millersville for the world.

To have a successful football program you have to have a strong group working hard together on a regular basis to win.

Stephanie Perota

Outside of class I worked on putting the flowchart scenarios we did on the whiteboard into Illustrator. Making one large flowchart out of all the different scenarios for football is tough. The game is paused often, and there are many different plays, scenarios, and formations that could occur.

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I also began researching more minimal things:

I decided to make mock ups of different icons that could possibly be used to represent players for different scenarios on the field and in plays.

Sha’kir Jones

I did one of the flow charts in illustrator.

Kristen Bryant:

Here are the flowcharts I created in Black and white for our homework. I think I’m getting the gist of it. I think Im still struggling with some of the indirect options and other possible outcomes, but that will be cleared up on Wednesday!

Rebecca Heller:

This past weekend I had a wedding to attend so I was unable to meet with the group. The coach finally got back to me and said we can meet with him this Tuesday after 7:30pm, Wednesday between 1 and 3pm, or Thursday between 1:30 and 3pm. After discussing with the group we decided on Tuesday at 7:30pm. I also created some icons and I made a vector football field that could be used for something.

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In class today we went over the feedback we got from other students in D2L about our flowcharts. We discussed ways to improve upon them and how to make them more in depth. We then broke into our groups and began making in-depth flowcharts about our sport.

Outside of class all 4 of us met up to review our list and design our flowcharts. First we listed out our ten topics, and then we got to work mapping them out. After we did all 10, we helped each other map out our individual scenario flowcharts.
Steph, Rebecca, and Sha’kir went to a Penn Manor high school football game after working on the flowcharts.

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Top 10 Important Topics

• Scoring (Ways to Score)
• General Rules
• Team Formations
• Positions of Players
• Equipment
• Field
• Penalties
• Referee Signals
• Offence Strategies
• Defense Strategies

Mapping the Top 10 Topics

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Stephanie

My completed flowcharts I will put into D2L:

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Kristen

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I based my flowcharts on actual football plays and how they would play out. I guess theirs many outcomes for most plays but these can be just one outcome. I’ll put these on d2l as well!

Rebecca

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My flowcharts were the more general ones because the rest of the group was mapping out plays. I felt that these general charts were just as important to understanding the game as the complex play flowcharts. I will put these on D2L for feedback from my classmates.
I went to the football game, and I have to say that watching it really helped me understand it better, more than I thought it would. I still am confused about the downs and yardages, but I finally understand the point of punting the ball to the other team. It is designed to push the other team back so it isn’t as easy for them to score a touchdown.