Leading the Way in MLS App Design
Turned a 3.5-star app into the best in the league
4.7★
App Store rating (from 3.5)
5K+
Reviewers (from under 100)
#1
Rated MLS team app
The Challenge
The Sounders app had a 3.5-star rating and low engagement. Fans wanted to stay informed about games (upcoming, live, and past) but the existing design was cluttered, skeuomorphic, and hard to navigate.
Approach
Started with a heuristic evaluation, identified core usability failures, then redesigned the information architecture and visual language — shifting from skeuomorphic to a clean hybrid/flat approach that better matched modern platform standards. Designed iteratively from 2015 to 2020, testing each major release.
Heuristic Evaluation
Heuristically evaluating the existing design, we found many issues — from poor system visibility and cluttered navigation to a skeuomorphic visual style that felt dated and hard to parse. Mapping those findings gave us a clear foundation for what needed to change.
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The Redesign
As the new designs shifted from low to high fidelity, we increased system visibility with clearer navigation — moving from skeuomorphic to a clean hybrid/flat approach that matched modern platform standards and put the game-day experience front and center.
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Outcome
The app grew from under 100 reviews to over 5,000, with an App Store rating of 4.7. It now outperforms the official MLS app (2x the reviewers) and the next-best team app (5x the reviewers).
4.7★
App Store rating (from 3.5)
5K+
Reviewers (from under 100)
#1
Rated MLS team app