What's in the Game? : An Exploratory Design Study about Football Statistics

Abstract: The interest in football around the world is ever increasing with more than half of the world’s population watching the last World Cup. The amount and the granularity of information available about football is endless. In recent years the advent of new technology has led to possibilities to track and log all aspects of the game, making advanced statistics available to everyone. The focus of the research community of football statistics today is on professionals as the end recipient. The knowledge, requirements and goals of enthusiasts and experts differ which means that the design of statistics targeted at the different groups should differ. This design study took an exploratory mixed methods approach to study how to design football statistics for enthusiasts. A variety of methods were used including, expert interview, survey and interviews with 8 football enthusiasts led to design suggestions of statistics which were evaluated in two phases. The iterative approach led to general guidelines of how to design football statistics, and 12 design suggestions of visualizations of statistics. The visualizations function as instantiations of the knowledge gained throughout the study. The design suggestions communicate information about how the conclusions drawn in the study can be practically implemented in a smartphone application about football statistics. The results of the study can be used to guide the design of football statistics for enthusiasts.