National Symposium for Debate: Building a Tournament Planning Tool That Actually Helps Debate Families
Industry
Education
Project
Tournament Shopping Cart Development & User Experience Design
Target Market
United States
Tech Stack
Webflow, MongoDB, Memberstack, Skyscanner API, GA4 Analytics
User Interface Snapshots
Client Background
National Symposium for Debate (NSD) is a premier organization in competitive debate education, serving students and parents across the United States.
Through their existing platform, Debate Land, they provide free tournament calendars, debater rankings, and performance statistics, attracting around 700 unique monthly visitors during debate season.
Currently, the Tournament Shopping Cart on Debate Land resembles a well-organized spreadsheet with basic filters, but it lacks personalization and is not catered towards parents who need critical information like tournament costs. As their platform gained traction, Debate Coaching Academy recognized the need to transform this spreadsheet-like interface into a dynamic, user-friendly web application that would help families make informed decisions about tournament participation and significantly increase user engagement.
Client Challenge
- All tournament planning and cost estimation were handled manually by families
- No filtering system for tournaments by date, location, or proximity
- Parents had zero visibility into travel costs before committing to tournaments
- Platform lacked personalization with no ability to save tournament selections
- Every visit required starting from scratch with no saved preferences
- Poor mobile experience made tournament planning difficult on-the-go
- No user authentication system for managing schedules across devices
- Missing analytics prevented understanding of user behavior and needs
- Limited ability to scale beyond 700 monthly visitors during season
- No cost breakdown for flights, hotels, and tournament fees
Our Solution
- Built intelligent filtering system with date, region, state, and ZIP code distance search
- Integrated Skyscanner API for flight options and hotel recommendations near venues
- Created automated cost calculator showing flights, hotels, fees, and total estimates
- Developed interactive schedule builder for saving and managing multiple tournaments
- Implemented Memberstack authentication with Google OAuth and email login
- Designed mobile-responsive interface in Webflow optimized for all devices
- Built personalized dashboards for viewing and exporting tournament schedules
- Set up GA4 Analytics for tracking user behavior and conversion funnels
- Established MongoDB caching to optimize performance and reduce API costs
- Developed email export functionality for sharing schedules
Results
- Transformed spreadsheet interface into dynamic tournament planning tool
- Eliminated cost uncertainty with comprehensive travel expense estimates
- Enabled cross-device schedule management through user authentication
- Reduced tournament discovery time with smart filtering and proximity search
- Built scalable architecture supporting growth beyond current visitor numbers
- Enhanced mobile experience for parents planning tournaments on-the-go
- Positioned platform for significant user growth through personalization features
- Improved decision-making with transparent cost breakdowns before commitment
- Established analytics foundation for continuous platform optimization
- Increased user engagement through saved schedules and personalized experiences
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