Summer is great for all kinds of sports and it is especially suitable for outdoor activities, just like running, jumping, cycling, and … swimming, of course. Today we are talking to Michael Badulescu, CTO of Swisswaterpolo.com about the latest enhancements implemented for the national water polo web site by the BearDev team.
MICHAEL BADULESCU
Swiss Waterpolo, Chief Technical Director
BearDev: We know Switzerland as the country of a thousand lakes. As far as Swimming is greatly popular among Swiss people, would you say the same regarding water polo?
MB: Unfortunately, it is not so popular as Swimming, but we are growing slowly. Water polo in Switzerland is quite small community with about 1’500 licensed players. The competitions are played in swimming pools, so the numbers of lakes doesn’t help us a lot.
BearDev: The first destination point for most visitors of sport web sites is matches result pages. Profound renewal of these pages on http://results.swisswaterpolo.com made them really good-looking and attractive. Are you satisfied with the obtained quality of the Front End usability and responsiveness?
MB: The page looks great and the first experiences are good. Next season we will go live with the whole championship. Hope everything works well and the public will accept the new page. The collaboration with the BearDev Team was always a pleasure.
BearDev: The results section of the web site was also embarrassing for Back End users involving multiple manual operations and legacy update procedures. Now, when the navigation improved considerably and referees got the chance to update the results at a go, how did these changes influence the everyday lives of your visitors and staff?
MB: Till now I can’t tell you a lot because we are just using the page in a small part of Switzerland. In September this year we go live for every tournament and will have proper feedback from the site visitors and system administrators.
BearDev: Did you discover any measurable parameter changes for http://results.swisswaterpolo.com. You know, traffic, bounce rates, sessions duration, etc.
MB: No, not yet. We still have no enough statistics for that, but we’ll certainly analyze them carefully after the high season starts.
BearDev: Do you have some more ideas to refine the look and capabilities of http://results.swisswaterpolo.com?
MB: Yes a lot. As a simple example we would like to add the games downloading to outlook calendar in ics format feature.
BearDev: What are your nearest plans regarding the functionality of your sites?
MB: We consider the opportunity to create a mobile application for our fans and league participants so they can interact and browse the results and news in more convenient way. But, before we need to test the latest version of the site to figure out all possible players’ demands and requirements. As soon as we get enough user statistics and reviews we’ll be able to set the technical task soundly and in more details.
BearDev: Thank you very much indeed for the interview. We are happy to partner with Swiss Waterpolo and really proud about the achieved progress. We wish your federation long life and Swiss Waterpolo players’ new achievements.
Comments