Parent & Guardian Experience

What is Courtside?

Courtside is a sports management platform primarily built for coaches and organizations. But a growing part of the user base is parents/guardians — people who aren't running the team but need to know what's happening with their child's training, events, and payments.

The guardian experience had been an afterthought. Parents were using the same interface as coaches, seeing admin features they didn't need, and missing the information that actually mattered to them — upcoming events, attendance, payment status, and communication from the coach.

Parents were using a coach-oriented interface. There was no dedicated guardian experience — no account switching between roles, no parent-specific dashboard, no streamlined view of what matters to a non-admin user.

Granular Design Problems

Create a dedicated guardian experience that gives parents the information they need — schedules, attendance, payments, communication — without exposing coach/admin complexity. Make it feel like the app was built for them too, not just adapted from the coach view.

Understanding the Guardian Persona

Studied the parent user type through conversations with the PM and feedback from the team. Understood the different parent/athlete relationship types and how they affect the app experience.

Existing UI Audit

Audited the existing experience for parents — they were logging in as guardians but seeing a coach-like interface. Identified what was confusing, what was missing, and where the experience fell short.

Account Switching (Coach ↔ Guardian)

Designed the interaction for users who have both coach and guardian roles to switch between them within the app. Explored options for persistent toggles in the header vs. switching from profile/settings.

Guardian Priority Zone (CUI-209)

Designed the primary dashboard view for parents — the first thing they see when they open the app in guardian mode. Prioritized upcoming events, attendance summary, recent notifications, and payment status.

Notifications for Parents (CUI-242)

Designed the notification system with read/unread states and tab filters for mobile. For the guardian view, surfaced parent-relevant notifications — event changes, attendance confirmations, payment reminders — and deprioritized coach-admin alerts.

Payment & Billing Visibility

Designed the payments tab for guardians to see their transaction history, upcoming fees, and payment status. Added a transaction filter screen for mobile.

Color Contrast Adjustments

Identified and fixed contrast issues during the guardian UI development. The green status color was too bright and failing contrast tests — adjusted saturation and darkness, updated the hex code, and communicated the change to the development team.

Designed both web and mobile guardian experiences:

Mobile: Primary platform for parents — optimized for quick checks (schedule, notifications, payments). Designed with one-handed use in mind.

Web: Expanded layouts for parents who prefer desktop — more detailed payment history, side-by-side event and attendance views.

Created annotated Figma pages with spacing and component guidelines on the "New Enhanced UI" page. Directed devs to reference these pages for implementation. Tracked via Jira tickets (CUI-209, CUI-234, CUI-242). Reviewed feature builds and flagged UI discrepancies.

Impact

What I'd Do More Of

- Direct user interviews with parents/guardians

- More exploration of the multi-child parent scenario and its impact on dashboard design