With the announcement of the partnership between the National Hockey League (NHL®) and SAP in the fall of 2014, SAP’s Design Services were leveraged to create the next generation experiences fans will have with NHL hockey statistics. This included a re-imagination of the NHL stats web experience found on NHL.com. From October 2014 to January 2015 our three-person design team worked between New York City (where the NHL is headquartered) and Palo Alto, CA.

NHL.com/stats went live in February 2015 in the first phase of what will be a multi-phase release of new stat experiences and tools for fans.

With over 10 million monthly visitors to NHL stats our work was able to achieve a high-level of impact for the NHL and their fan base. This was more than a visual upgrade around hockey stats. Our design team looked from day one to create the most compelling experience for fans while also meeting the greater goals and strategic objectives of the NHL.

Our design philosophy throughout the project:

KEEPING EVERYTHING GROUNDED IN THE FANS
Every aspect of the design was driven by an understanding of the needs, expectations and aspirations of the people we were designing for. We engaged with fans in context to understand their perspectives about hockey at a deep level. We examined not only how fans feel about statistics, but also their greater attitudes, motivations and interactions with the sport. We used this deep empathy to develop a point of view to create meaningful solutions that addressed real needs.

ENSURING FEASIBILITY
The power of SAP technology gives fans a lightning quick experience with hockey statistics on NHL.com. This is especially important when you have thousands of concurrent users splitting, filtering and querying data all at the same time. From the very beginning we leveraged the deep expertise of the SAP Implementation and NHL development teams to identify the technical implications of our design decisions. This teamwork helped us identify any potential obstacles, which could then be addressed well before they became actual problems.