Twirlmate
Bridging the UX Gulf: How Eliminating a 4-Click Gap Improved Usability by 33%
Overview
Twirlmate is a webapp where parents and coaches register their athletes for baton twirling competitions. I redesigned the mobile registration experience, transforming a disjointed onboarding flow into a seamless customer journey; achieving a usability score of 89 (well above the industry average of 67) and reducing average time between sign up and checkout from 8 to 5 minutes.
Where
Twirlmate / 2025
My Role
As founder and product owner, I leveraged my unique technical-design background to identify and solve a critical user experience bottleneck while ensuring development feasibility.
Context
-
7
contests / year -
700
users / year -
$82K
revenue / year
As a World Silver Medalist and 13-year competitor, I lived through the frustrating reality of baton twirling contest registration and participation. The process was a multistep gauntlet that involved a number of fragmented tools and experiences:
Hunt for opportunities by scrolling through dozens of Facebook group posts, hoping to catch registration announcements
Navigate inconsistent registration processes (some contests used Google Forms, others required mailing PDFs), each with different requirements and formats
Piece together payment by calculating fees manually, then tracking down contest directors on Venmo or PayPal, often waiting days or weeks for confirmation
This fragmented experience meant parents spent hours on the registration process, directors struggled to manage payments and communicate with attendees, and our community missed out on opportunities due to poor communication or experience design.
I built Twirlmate to solve a problem I knew intimately: bringing contest discovery, registration, payment, and communication into one consistent, modern platform designed specifically for our sport's unique needs.
The Problem
During Twirlmate's first year, I provided all customer support, giving me direct insight into user pain points. The data revealed a critical gap in our user experience:
-
8% of individual attendees (5 out of 60 on average) contacted me confused about next steps after account creation
-
50% of team registrants (3 out of 6) needed help connecting their accounts to team registration
-
Some users gave up entirely, requiring me to spend an hour completing their registration manually
The core issue: Users successfully created accounts but couldn't find their way to contest registration, leaving them stuck and frustrated.
The Impact
Customers: frustration with the system and contest director
Directors: fewer attendees and less revenue
My business: increased customer support effort
How did we get here?
The original design assumed a two-step user journey:
-
Users discover Twirlmate → create accounts and teams
-
Later, they return to register for specific contests
But user behavior revealed a completely different reality:
Contest announcements drove signups, not platform awareness. Users arrived with one goal: register for a specific contest they'd just heard about. Account creation wasn't a deliberate platform onboarding. It was an unexpected obstacle blocking their path to registration.
The mismatch was clear: I designed for users who wanted to "join a platform," but attracted users who wanted to "register for this contest, right now."
Principles
Meet Users Where They Are - Since attendees expect to enter athlete information during registration, I integrated account creation directly into the registration flow rather than treating it as a separate step.
Enable Seamless Editing - Users needed to modify athlete and team details without losing their registration progress, so I built inline editing capabilities that kept them in flow.
Reveal Complexity Gradually - While the new flow handles more functionality, I used progressive disclosure to show only what users need at each step, maintaining a clean interface.
The key insight: Don't interrupt the user's primary task.
This led me to explore three approaches, each getting closer to seamless task completion.
Ideation
Option 1: Post-Setup Redirection - After account creation, redirect users to find their contest again on the event list page.
Strength: Lowest technical lift (just involves adding a link to an existing page).
Weakness: Users lose context and have to re-navigate to where they started.
Option 2: Context Preservation - Use technical parameters to remember which contest users were registering for and redirect them after account setup.
Strength: Eliminates 4 clicks otherwise required to navigate back to the contest registration page.
Weakness: Still breaks the user's mental flow and might not return them to their exact progress point.
Option 3: Contextual Account Creation - Embed account setup directly within the registration process.
Strength: Maintains user context and keeps them focused on their primary goal.
Weakness: Highest technical lift; significant rearchitecting of registration experience.
Challenges
Contest registration is typically seen as a tedious chore involving complex data entry in a specific sequence. Users needed to stay engaged while providing detailed information about athletes, events, and teams—all while feeling confident they were making the right choices.
My Design Approach
Build Momentum, Not Barriers
Used descriptive, progress-focused headings like "Tell us about [Athlete Name]" instead of generic "Step 2" labels
Added contextual help that appeared only when relevant (like explaining the difference between groups and teams)
Included a spinning baton icon and custom twirling-themed illustrations to inject moments of delight into what's usually a mundane process
Maintain Confidence Throughout
Provided clear progress indicators so users always knew where they stood in the flow
Built in four confirmation touchpoints to catch and correct mistakes: cart review, pre-payment confirmation, post-payment summary, and email receipt
Included clear instructions for making corrections after payment, reducing anxiety about "getting it wrong"
Keep It Simple
Focus on one action at a time
Reveal information progressively (e.g., showing team setup options only after they selected team events)
The Result
By eliminating the gap between account creation and registration, I transformed a frustrating user experience into a streamlined process:
Usability improved 33%: SUS score increased from 67 to 89
Time to completion dropped 62%: Average registration time fell from 8 to 3 minutes
To validate the broader business impact, I would track:
Registration completion rates and drop-off points
Revenue per registration session
Customer lifetime value and repeat usage
Support ticket volume and resolution time
What I Learned
When users have a clear goal (register for this contest), any obstacle that doesn't directly serve that goal creates friction. The solution wasn't just better UI—it was aligning the system architecture with user intent.
This project reinforced that the best UX solutions often require rethinking fundamental assumptions about user journeys, not just polishing interfaces. Users don't care about our internal system logic—they care about accomplishing their goals efficiently.