Supporting Team England at Trinbago 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games

We’ve been fortunate to work with Team England across several games cycles, supporting their efforts by delivering an award-winning website for the 2018 Gold Coast games, and maintaining their digital presence through the home games in Birmingham in 2022.

A more sustainable, tailored experience

Aside from the website itself, we also helped make their attendance in Birmingham more sustainable by delivering a digital-first solution for athletes, staff and journalists, the Team England Hub.

Traditionally the physical, printed event handbooks, have significant issues. They’re out of date the minute they’re printed, they aren’t a tailorable solution for each audience group, and most of them end up being underused and wasted.

We wanted to help the team create and deliver something more sustainable, more tailored to various user groups, something that could be developed and improved and have a life longer than the two-week games.

Our initial work on the Hub focused on limited audience groups, athletes, staff and journalists. In initial planning workshops, we identified and reviewed the needs of each user type. These workshops helped define specific user journeys and allowed us to tailor both content and experience. We designed an appropriately mobile-focused interface to ensure accessibility and ease of use on the go.

Technology Behind the Scenes: Efficiency and Agility

Our initial approach for the Hub was to try to circumvent traditionally exhaustive timelines. We coupled WordPress, for easy content management by the team, with a ReactJS front end, to deliver native iOS and Android apps. As each app was effectively a wrapper for the ReactJS front-end, there was some flexibility with the requirements to re-submit apps through their respective marketplaces for new features. This rapid deployment method ensured efficiency in responding to requests

We took care of last-minute amendments to medal tables and schedules on the fly. And, by building a bespoke API to work in parallel with the Team England website, we can pull content easily and robustly, keeping the time spent updating the Hub during games time to a minimum.

Enhancements for Trinbago 2023

Building upon the success and lessons learned from the Birmingham Games, we have made significant enhancements for the Trinbago 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games including removing login requirements, making the app more accessible to all users.

Additionally, we have improved content delivery between the Team England website and the app, ensuring users receive the latest updates seamlessly. To enhance the user experience, we have implemented a more robust live scheduling feature and enabled push notifications, delivering real-time updates on event schedules and other important information.

Learnings from Birmingham, Trinbago, and beyond

With all these changes, we’re ready to support Team England as they travel to, and compete at, Trinbago. And, we are excited to be continuing a partnership that has lasted almost a decade. The Hub represents a great example of our collaborative approach to our work, providing a sustainable, efficient, and user-friendly platform for athletes, staff, journalists, family, friends and fans.

As the team navigate the challenges of Trinbago 2023, we are inspired by the dedication, skill, and sportsmanship of both the team we work with and the athletes they support.

Beyond Trinbago 2023, our commitment and support will remain. We will continue to listen to feedback, learn from experiences, and enhance the Hub to provide an ever-improving experience for all stakeholders.