Sports & Fitness
Designing an alert settings page for favorite teams
An alert product succeeds or fails on its settings page, where people decide how much interruption they will accept. This guide walks through three decisions and one worked example for a team-following audience.
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Step one: separate teams from moments
Begin by splitting two choices that are often mixed together: which teams a person follows and which events deserve a ping. Put teams in one list and event types in another, so a fan can follow a club closely and a second club only for final results. Offer a few clear events such as game start, scoring play, lead change, and final. Avoid long menus on first view; show defaults that suit most people and tuck extra options behind a single expand control. This keeps setup under a minute and reduces early drop-off.
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Step two: give control over timing and volume
Next, add controls that protect attention. Quiet hours let someone mute alerts overnight or during work. A frequency cap, such as at most a set number of pings per game, prevents a high-scoring match from flooding a phone. A delay option helps people who watch on a stream and want to avoid spoilers. Each control should state its effect in plain language, for example, you will not be pinged between ten at night and seven in the morning. Show a preview of what a ping will look like so choices feel concrete before saving.
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Step three: test with one worked example
Imagine a fan who follows a basketball club and a soccer side. For basketball, she selects only game start and final, since scoring plays arrive constantly. For soccer, she picks goals, red cards, and final, with quiet hours from ten to seven. She sets a cap of eight pings per match and enables a thirty-second delay. The page then summarizes her setup in two sentences and offers a sample alert. Check that she can finish without help, change one rule in a single tap, and pause everything with one switch for a busy day.