Sleeper
Redesigning the League Switch Experiences
At Sleeper, our power users are serious — some manage up to 100 fantasy leagues across football, basketball, and more. But as the platform scaled, the existing league-switching experience didn’t keep up. It was simple when you had 1–3 leagues, but became clunky and overwhelming once you had dozens. Tapping through menus to find the right league during a live game or a draft was frustrating and slow.
I initiated a redesign to solve this pain point and reimagine league switching for our most engaged users.
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
2 Weeks
Softwares
Figma
ProtoPie
Problem
Sleeper’s most engaged users manage 10–100 fantasy leagues across different sports and seasons. However, switching between leagues was unintuitive and time-consuming, leading to frustration and navigation friction for our power users — especially during high-stakes moments like draft day or trade deadlines.
The existing league-switching experience was difficult to find. It also wasn’t scalable — users with more than 10 leagues had to scroll through a long vertical list, making it time-consuming to locate the right one. There were no options to search, group, or favorite leagues, which added to the friction. This lack of efficiency became especially frustrating during high-pressure moments, such as live drafts or trade deadlines, when quick navigation is critical.
How might we help users quickly access the leagues they care about most?
Goals
Redesign the league switching interaction to make it faster, more intuitive, and scalable for users managing many leagues — while keeping the experience lightweight and consistent with Sleeper’s playful, mobile-first design language.
Discovery
Questions I asked our CEO and Product team:
🧐 How many leagues do our users have on an average?
💬 80~85% users have 2+, 10-15% have 5+
🧐 How many for power users?
💬 10-100
🧐 In prod, what is the league ordering system/rules?
💬 Date joined, but users are allowed to order them manually if wanted
🧐 When switching league to league, do fantasy players typically switch between the same sport? or do they go cross-sport?
💬 More likely same sport
Sketching & Ideation
IDEA 01
❌ Cannot manage league order
❌ Hard to tell which league is selected
✅ Less vertical scrolling
IDEA 02
✅ Able to switch league from anywhere in the app
✅ Able to manage league order
❌ May require too much scrolling
IDEA 03
✅ Able to create new league shortcut from here
❌ Cannot manage league order
❌ May require too much scrolling
Refining the Concept: Design Rules
After sketching and exploring ideas, we established the following key design principles to create a smooth, intuitive experience:
League Switcher Overlay
Show max 8 leagues in the overlay at a time to avoid overwhelming users.
Order leagues by type (e.g., NFL leagues together, NBA leagues together) for easy navigation.
If switching from an NFL league, dynamically order NFL leagues by most recently visited, keeping the user's context intact.
Dynamic League Ordering
Example: If a user is in 7 NFL leagues and 2 NBA leagues and is switching from an NFL league, the 7 NFL leagues will appear at the bottom, followed by 1 NBA league at the top.
Selected League will always appear at the very bottom for clarity.
Last visited leagues will be ordered from bottom to top, showing the most recently accessed ones first.
Leagues will be grouped by sport for easy distinction (e.g., all NFL leagues together, all NBA leagues together).
Final Solution
✅ Long tap/tap league icon to trigger modal to switch leagues
✅ Arrows beside league icon indicates ability to switch between leagues
✅ The user can see UI behind overlay – matchup could be happening
✅ Switch between leagues from anywhere on the app with a tap
✅ League ordered by date visited
✅ “See All” takes user to all leagues list
Solution For Different Users
NORMAL USER
✅ 1-5 Leagues
✅ Doesn’t need to frequently change the order of the leagues except maybe in the beginning of the season
✅ Mostly switch between same sport
POWER USER
✅ 6-100 leagues
✅ Doesn’t need to frequently change the order of the leagues except maybe in the beginning of the season
✅ Mostly switch between same sport
✅ Requires vertical scrolling to view more leagues
NEW USER
✅ Only 1 league
✅ League switch overlay interaction disabled since there is only 1 league
Outcome
While this redesign was not shipped during my time at Sleeper, the work sparked discussions about scalable navigation patterns for power users. It served as a foundational concept for future improvements in multi-league management.
What I learned…
Scalable UI needs to work just as well for 3 leagues as it does for 100
Designing for speed and clarity is essential in live-action apps
Internal feedback is gold — especially when your team are the users
Never underestimate the power of a well-timed sketch when making your case
THANK YOU 🖤