Like most Americans, I’m not a huge soccer fan. However, also like most Americans I’m getting in to the world cup. Being that I’m a full-time student and full-time employee, I can’t take a whole lot of mid-day breaks to watch soccer. This has required me to rely on the ESPN GameCast for many of the games, so far I’ve been very impressed. The picture above shows the general interface, there are a few creative designs I think are worth pointing out:
- As a casual soccer fan, I benefit greatly from the “chat” section of the screen. I’m not an expert and don’t know the history or the flow, so comments like, “USA is 0-15-4 all-time when allowing the first goal at the world cup.” or “Ghana looks like the better team right now.” or “That’s the kind of attack the US needs to be able to muster more often” help me figure out what’s really going on.
- The fact that most of the little triangles on the field have video highlights associated with them is very nifty. The highlights play right in the window and allow me to see what all the fuss was about.
- The stats are very thorough, and translate well to the kind of stats I’m used to (time of possession for example). ESPN also highlights these stats in yellow each time they change, allowing me to flip back and forth and say, write a blog post.
