Train My Game: Designing a Basketball Training Platform

The Train My Game (TMG) project began with a passionate ex-college basketball player turned coach who had a deep understanding of player development and a powerful idea for a mobile training platform. This vision, however, existed only as a rough, unstructured Word document.

They had the subject matter expertise but lacked a tangible product. They needed a design partner to take their raw concepts and architect a complete digital product from scratch. Everything from a placeholder brand identity to the detailed user experience for both players and coaches.

This is the kind of challenge I specialise in through sports tech product design: transforming unstructured vision into functional, investor-ready products.

I worked directly with the founder as their sole product designer to bring their vision to life. My role extended far beyond typical product design. I acted as a true founding partner. This involved:

Translating a Raw Brief: Systematically translating the concepts from the Word document into logical user flows and a coherent product structure

Designing the End-to-End UX/UI: Creating every screen and interaction for the entire Minimum Viable Product

Establishing a Brand Identity: Creating the placeholder “Train My Game” branding, including the logo and colour palette, to give the concept a distinct and energetic visual identity

This process reflected the same framework I use in idea development: taking unformed concepts and shaping them into coherent, fundable product systems.

The final framework was a comprehensive design for a sophisticated, two-sided training platform.

The player’s journey was designed to be motivating and focused on clear progression.

Personalised Training Plans: The core of the experience is the “Your Plan” screen, where players see their assigned training program, track their progress, and view coach feedback on completed drills.

Video-Based Drills: I designed a detailed, video-first interface for each training session, with clear instructions, set/rep trackers, and a simple way for players to mark drills as complete.

Visualising Progress: A dedicated statistics section provides players with clear, visual feedback on their performance over time, with charts for key metrics like shooting accuracy and conditioning.

The coach’s experience was designed for efficiency and control, allowing them to manage multiple players with ease.

Program & Drill Creation: I designed a complete administrative backend, allowing coaches to create new training plans, build a library of custom drills, and define every detail of a session.

Player Management & Assignment: The design includes a simple system for coaches to manage their roster of players, assign specific training plans, and monitor their progress from a high-level dashboard.

Detailed Analytics: The coach’s view of a player’s profile provides deep insights into their performance, recent sessions, and areas for improvement.

I could have built one app with role-based permissions. Instead, I designed distinct player and coach experiences. Here’s why: players and coaches have fundamentally different mental models. Players think in terms of “my workout today.” Coaches think in terms of “my roster’s progress this week.”

By creating separate, optimised interfaces for each user type, we reduced cognitive load and made each experience feel purpose-built rather than compromised.

For a founder starting with just an idea, my work provided the critical assets needed to get their business off the ground.

Created an Investor-Ready Asset: The comprehensive, high-fidelity designs and prototype transformed a rough idea into a tangible, professional product presentation. This was the key deliverable the founder needed for their investor pitch deck to secure funding.

Provided a Clear Framework for Development: The complete, end-to-end designs served as a detailed guide for the engineering team. This eliminated ambiguity, de-risked the technical build, and provided a clear roadmap to accelerate the development of the MVP.

Defined the Product Vision: Before my engagement, TMG was an idea in a document. I delivered a complete product vision, giving the entire team a “North Star” to rally behind and build towards.