The quickest way to ruin onboarding? Wrong default state

This is one of the most common onboarding mistakes we see in sports product design — and designers still underestimate it.

At Humbleteam, a UX/UI and product design agency working with sports teams and the sports industry, we often design onboarding flows for match-day apps, fan engagement platforms, and live sports experiences. And the audiences there are never homogeneous.

A single football match can bring a 50-year-old fan, a 12-year-old kid, and an international supporter who doesn’t speak the local language.

In sports apps, diversity is the default. That’s why your default state matters so much.
If you ask for gender — which option appears first?
If you ask for language — does it align with the user’s geolocation?
If you ask for region — is it based on real fan behaviour or assumptions?

In sports UX/UI design, onboarding is one of the few moments where designers must work directly with data analysts.

Open the database. Look at real user behaviour. Look at what sports fans actually choose.
Because if you don’t — your default state is probably wrong.

At Humbleteam, we consider it a red flag when onboarding screens are designed in Figma without real data behind them. Great onboarding for sports teams and platforms doesn’t start in Figma — it starts in the database.