SquadUp Case Study
Summary: SquadUp is a dynamic business and management platform designed to make organizing sports and social activities effortless. Whether you're planning a weekend pickup game, coordinating a league, or hosting a community event, SquadUp streamlines scheduling, communication, and team management, all in one place. Built for people who love getting together, it helps turn casual plans into well-run experiences.
Role: Sole Designer and Project Developer
2025
People love playing sports and hanging out socially, but organizing group activities is often messy: juggling group chats, calendars, and availability. I set out to design a solution that would streamline scheduling, communication, and team formation in one place.
Problem and Motivation
Approach:
Conducted a survey of 50 participants, including friends, family, and colleagues, to gather insights on social and sports activity planning behaviors.
Analyzed responses and synthesized common trends to inform design decisions and prioritize core features.
Key Findings:
Group chats get cluttered when planning activities.
Scheduling across people’s calendars is frustrating.
Last-minute changes (weather, cancellations) make coordination harder.
Research
Build a lightweight, intuitive tool for organizing games and meetups.
Eliminate back-and-forth planning by centralizing scheduling, RSVPs, and team formation.
Encourage participation through simple UX and clear communication.
Goals and Design Approach
Ideation:
Brainstormed pain points from personal experience with casual sports meetups.
Sketched core flows: event creation, inviting friends, RSVP tracking.
Wireframing:
Created low-fidelity wireframes in Figma to map user flows (ex: event setup → notifications → confirmations).
Prototyping:
Built high-fidelity screens in Figma, focusing on a clean, modern UI that felt welcoming and social.
Iterated on event cards, RSVP screens, and group dashboards.
Process and Design Journey
In addition to product design, I created the SquadUp brand identity, including logo, color palette, and typography, to reinforce a playful yet reliable tone.
In order to create the mockups and develop a prototype for SquadUp, I utilized Figma and some Adobe based tools to help the website come to life.
Final Solution
I later expanded SquadUp during the Figma Make-a-thon, a global design challenge that brought together creators to push the boundaries of product design in a limited timeframe.
Working as a solo designer and developer, I took the project from concept to high-fidelity prototype within the competition window (without using any of my prior mockups except for reference).
During the Make-a-thon I:
Submitted a post about my prototype within the deadline on Contra.
Applied rapid design thinking, moving from research and synthesis to wireframing, prototyping, and branding in just a few days.
Showcased the project to peers and judges.
Gained experience designing under real constraints, balancing creativity with speed and scope.
This experience highlighted my ability to ideate, execute, and deliver polished work quickly, while maintaining a user-centered approach.
Figma Make-a-thon
In under 220 Prompts, I was able to create a near full application with the following functionality:
Login/signup with Supabase
Full search functionality for teams and activities
Dashboard to manage squads and events
Smart calendar for scheduling
Real-time team messaging
Squad pages with RSVP capabilities
This tool allowed me to do the work of 5 for a month in under a week.