Case study · Liverpool FC × IBM iX

The official app of Liverpool Football Club

Redefining how one of the world's biggest football clubs connects with millions of fans: a stripped-back, football-first experience, shaped by the fans it was built for.

RoleProduct Designer · IBM iX

TimelineJul – Oct 2019

Results4.5★ App Store · 2M+ downloads

The challenge

The club's digital presence wasn't keeping pace with its fans

Liverpool wanted to redefine how it connects with a global fanbase of hundreds of millions
Fans were drifting to rival platforms for the club news and match content the official channels should own
The question we kept asking: why would a supporter choose the official app over the alternatives already on their phone?

Hand holding a phone showing the LFC app home screen — The answer had to fit in one hand, on match day.

The direction

Shaped by the fans, for the fans. Stripped back, authentic, football first.

Research kept returning the same three frustrations: cluttered interfaces, over-commercialisation, and not enough football. The answer was to remove, not add.

Discovery

Fans mapped from Anfield outward

Personas, user journey mapping and focus groups with supporters
A here, near and far segmentation: the global fanbase organised by proximity to the club, because a fan in Kirkby and a fan in Kuala Lumpur need different things on match day
The finding that set the direction: fans wanted sport-first content, not another storefront with a badge on it

The LFC app user journey map — The journey map that organised the work.

Discovery · who we listened to

We designed for the fanbase the club was going to have, not the one it already had.

Thailand was projected to be Liverpool's fastest-growing fanbase, on a trajectory to one day be the majority of supporters. So we went to Thai fans rather than the fans already in the stadium, and asked what the ultimate experience would look like for them. Existing supporters tell you to fix what's in front of them; the growth audience tells you what to build.

Discovery · In their words

What the Thai fans asked for

I have never been to Anfield and I probably never will. The app is my seat in the stadium.

Supporter · Bangkok

Matches kick off at two in the morning here. I wake up and I want the score before anything else.

Supporter · Chiang Mai

Give me the football first. When I want a shirt, I know where the shop is.

Supporter · Bangkok

Three asks, one direction: closeness to the club, the score up front, and commerce that waits its turn. Every one of them shaped the shipped app.

Foundations · Tenets

The tenets of the LFC app

01

Football first, always

The score, the squad and the match are never more than a glance away. Everything else queues behind them.

02

Designed for the fan who may never reach Anfield

The growth audience is global. The app is their seat in the stadium, not a companion to one.

03

Remove before you add

Every screen earns its place. The strongest decisions on this project took something away.

04

Commerce waits its turn

The shop is there when a fan wants it, and never in the way of the football.

Set after the research, and held for the whole build. Every removal in the app traces back to one of these.

How we worked

Two-week sprints, one feature at a time

A multidisciplinary IBM iX team on an agile cadence with the club
Each sprint cycled learning → creation → testing → implementation on a single feature
The experience was refined incrementally, rather than betting everything on one big launch

LFC app screens in progress across the main sections — Screens from the sprints, as they landed.

The work · News

A feed that leads with football

Full-bleed player imagery and one headline per story: the football is the interface
A live match strip pinned above the feed, so the score is never more than a glance away
Commercial content earns its place further down; it never leads

Two phones showing the LFC news feed with a live match strip pinned above full-bleed player stories — The feed that greets you: live scores above, first-team stories below.

The work · Fixtures & results

Match day, given the weight it deserves

Fixtures surfaced quickly across every team: Mens, Womens and Academy
Tabbed navigation moves between matches, league tables and stats without losing context
Featured fixtures, a Champions League night, get crests, venue and a countdown: the big games look like big games

Two phones: the fixtures list with a featured Champions League match card, and a live goal moment for Van Dijk — A featured Champions League night, and a goal the moment it lands.

The work · Navigation

Navigation you never have to think about

A fullscreen menu with four primary sections: Home, News, Fixtures & Results, Teams
Discover LFC and personalisation sit second, present but never in the way
Nothing a fan cares about is buried three taps deep

The LFC app fullscreen navigation menu — The whole app, in one screen of navigation.

The work · Statistics

Statistics that read at a glance

Large numerals, clear labels, red-on-red: on-brand and legible at arm's length
A numeric language in the system itself: solid, dotted and empty borders encoding positive, neutral and negative values
Player profiles go full-screen and immersive, pairing the bold visual style with rich statistics

Attack statistics: 89 goals, 2.34 per game, 434 total shots — 89 goals, readable from across the room.

The system underneath

LFC Design: one system, three problems solved

Inconsistency across screens and teams, inefficiency from rebuilding the same components, and insecurity about which pattern was the right one
An atomic system: cards and modules that hold their shape through updates, kit patterns woven into match cards for a connection you feel rather than read
Built to scale past the app: the same language carried to the website and e-commerce platform

The atomic build-up of a substitution component: a numeral becomes a player card, becomes a live substitution event — The atomic build-up: a numeral becomes a player, becomes a live substitution.

The system underneath · at scale

A grid of phones showing every screen type in the LFC app: news, fixtures, player pages, statistics and live match events — Every surface, one language: news, fixtures, players, stats and live match events, all built from the same components.

The work · Player pages

Virgil van Dijk's full-screen player page, with the shirt purchasable directly from it — Immersive, full-screen player pages with rich statistics. And commerce where it belongs: the shirt sold from the player’s own page, never in the way of the football.

Shipped · the app in motion

Live scores, a feed that leads with football, and the stripped-back direction holding at speed.

The team

The LFC app team at Anfield, in the home dressing room — The team at Anfield, sitting where the players sit before a match.

Results

What it earned

4.5★

App Store rating

From fan reviews of the shipped app, the audience the whole direction was built around.

2M+

Downloads

Estimated across iOS and Android, for a club whose fanbase spans every continent.

+Apps

The work continued

IBM was commissioned for further LFC mobile apps, and LFC Design carried to the club's website and e-commerce platform.

Reflection

What I learned

01

Removal is a feature

Every strong decision on this project took something away. Fans didn't ask for more; they asked for the football back.

02

A design system is confidence, not just consistency

The system's quietest win was ending the arguments: a single source of truth meant nobody had to guess which pattern was right.

03

Big brands live in small rules

A kit pattern inside a match card, a border style on a number. The badge carries less of the brand than the details do.

Thank you

4.5★ App Store · 2M+ downloads · One system across app, web and retail

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