Project: High School Sports Database
For my first large-scale project in my career, as well as the largest project I had undertaken at the Tacoma News Tribune, I spent three months designing and developing the cleverly named web-based application “High School Sports Database”. This system streamlined the management of high school sports data across multiple counties. The application significantly improved workflows for the team of six data-entry staff and designers.
The system was designed to manage data for over a dozen sports, each with unique requirements. I built a dynamic UI that displayed only the relevant fields for each sport and included a list of players from the previous game, simplifying data entry and reducing errors.
Based on staff feedback, I developed a dashboard that tracked the percentage of games reported, enabling staff to efficiently follow up on unreported games as the night progressed. I also introduced a browser-based technique to simplify school name selection, compensating for the lack of modern auto-complete functionality.
One of the key features of the app was the export tool, which allowed the designer to estimate newspaper column space in advance, minimizing last-minute formatting decisions. By centralizing data collection, I eliminated bottlenecks, reducing redundancy and significantly improving overall efficiency. Additionally, I proposed making the data publicly available online, which generated an additional revenue stream through ad views.
While formal measurements of the results were not conducted, the improvements were clearly reflected in the reduced noise and stress within the department. Staff no longer had to manually cross-check player names or handle duplicate call-ins, which allowed for more accurate reporting. Designers spent less time formatting and were better able to allocate space on the newspaper pages. The system ran for over ten years, outlasting my tenure at the agency.