THE SOLUTION

HOW I GOT THERE

I chose to create a 404 page for the MLB homesite. I was disturbed that they do not have one, but the Minor League Baseball website does. This gave me a starting point at ground zero. I also analyzed the MLB landing page and learned a few things to prepare me for this project. First, the homepage is overstimulating, with tons of articles, scores, videos, links, shops, and anything else baseball-related. However, every link/story/video/profile is accompanied by photos of players, coaches, or fans. The MLB is very human-centric in its design. I used this idea when reworking my original draft.

 I learned that 66% of users are male, 34% female, 81.24% of users use US IP addresses, and site usage is maximized during baseball season (86 million site visits in September drop to 41 million by November when the World Series is over). I also recognize that there are numerous statistics surrounding baseball, and fans love the nostalgia of old games, winning teams, and the fandom that surrounds them. This ultimately pushed my design to what it is, rather than landing on funny compilation videos. Lou Piniella played for the New York Yanks and is a former coach for the Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Rays, San Francisco Giants, and Seattle Mariners. He famously has thrown bases at umpires and other coaches in fits of rage. I wanted to use that same ideal, the irrational anger when we cannot find the right webpage, and apply it to this UI challenge. 

The MLB home page has a 48.91% bounce rate, meaning users leave after visiting one page. To me, that means users are on the site for a specific purpose, I wanted them to find that page faster. I included re-direct page links to HOME (the landing page), NEWS, and MLB.TV, SCORES, TICKETS, and LOGIN. These options best represented what users would be looking for immediately. I also added the links to each of the 30 major league teams for fans to interact with the reason they love the sport.

I worked within the color palette of the MLB logo: Blue #041E42, Red #BF0D3E, and White #FFFFF).  I added the accessibility features for assistance and a language button for non-native English speakers.