Indeed: "PGA Tour’s digital redesign puts mobile first"

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Last month, SBJ's Michael Smith previewed the revamped PGATour.com and I've been waiting for the first stroke play event to better understand the execution of the mobile-first redesign which to the extreme detriment of the desktop site.

More video is great, but way too many par putts are treated as worthy of our time. (Click to enlarge)On an iPhone, PGATour.com looks beautiful and is seemingly content rich. The site loads quickly, looks modern, and other than the absurdity of revolving the PGA Tour Leaderboard with a Charles Schwab Cup points list or Web.com Money Earnings, seems more user-friendly than the old website when accessed on a mobile device.

However, with a redesigned PGA Tour App I'm not sure how much a mobile-friendly site is needed. I found the revitalized PGA Tour App to be largely outstanding during the Northern Trust Open when on course even with so-so reception. The Shottracker features make it easy to track how players were playing a hole or get leaderboard updates, so I'm not sure why anyone would go to the more advertising-laden mobile website when the app provides a streamlined, PGA Tour-focused experience providing the most pertinent information (scores!).

The desktop version looks attractive at first glimpse but the homepage is far less user-friendly in this first version (no doubt tweeks are coming). The emphasis on photography freshens things up makes for great eye candy but is in general too prominent and the "Video" stream is overloaded with clips of too many par putts and uninspired moments which will only be of interest to close friends and family of players.

Individual tournament pages are greatly improved, with easy access to all pertinent information (Click to enlarge)When you dig deeper, say to a tournament page, the site is better and makes searches for information easier. Pages devoted to players have some nice new touches, including easy access to past video clips and stats, but the overall amount of images, ads and other visuals too often makes it harder work to find what you are looking for.  On the mobile experience, the player pages take a couple of clicks to access but again, seems to work much better.

Smith's SBJ story warned that this emphasis would be the case. And while I understand the traffic numbers drove this, I do wonder if adjustments can be made to improve the desktop experience and in particular, the homepage, where first impressions are made.

From Smith's story:

The tour’s digital team, led by Goicouria and senior director Scott Gutterman, had planned to do a site redesign for 2014 anyway, but the traffic patterns influenced how they have gone about it.

“We designed the mobile first,” Gutterman said. “We looked at, ‘How is the fan going to experience PGATour.com on mobile’ first, then desktop second.”

Goicouria and Gutterman said making the platform responsive is a trend that they’ve seen with entities like The Boston Globe and NASCAR.com, but it remains fairly cutting edge, they said.

“We want a consistent experience across all of the platforms,” Goicouria said. “But it’s going to be inspired by how people use mobile first. It’s not designed with click in mind, it’s designed with touch screen in mind. There won’t be the small links that your fat fingers can’t click on.”

The redesign already has an ad campaign.