Madden Franchise Layout (Fan Mock-Up)

[Toupal]

One of my biggest gripes with madden is the layout of its franchise home page. The same homepage where it tells you what week you are playing in about 8 different times, taking up half of the screen. I thought I would mock up what I think could be a much better way of navigating through a CFM. I literally took NFL.com and tweaked it to fit madden. I have numbered each point and go into it in more detail.




1.Teams Pages- How nice would it be to have easy access to all 32 team pages? That way you can access what is going on with any team in the league. This would allow you to check up on any team in the league regardless of what team you are controlling. Additionally, you can play any game you want without have to have user control of that team. I have another mock up below that gets into more detail on this.

Here you can see news stories, weekly games/ results, depth charts, and everything in between you would need to run the Rams.


2. Schedule- Attached is a mock-up of a schedule I made a last year that I find a little more useful than the one we currently have. It has set days for you to do certain tasks such as practice, game prep, and scouting. As well as other things like when to cut your roster down, trade deadline, and when draft classes will be published/ when they can be created.


3. News- Similar to what we have now, you will have news stories as to what is going on in the league, weekly wrap-ups, transactions, draft updates, or even player stories.

4. Rosters- This is where you manage rosters. This screen would take you to another screen that has:
Team Rosters- From here you can view and edit anything about a player you want
Depth Chart- Set a teams depth chart from here
Free Agents- A list of players available. One addition to this, is in the FA pool will be recently retired players like your Marshawn Lynchs’, Brett Favres’, etc. etc.
Trade Hub- From here you can view who is on the trade block, make trades, and a new feature I would like to see… trade finder. Essentially you select a player, and that team tells you what they would want in return for him.
Other Stuff- I am sure there is something I may be forgetting, but feel free to throw some ideas in there.

5. Draft- This is where you go to scout, see draft stories, find combine results, mock drafts, and most importantly view/ create/ edit/ share draft classes. Another addition I added was draft history, so you can see what your team has done in the past.


Another new thing I added was settings. This is so you can set sliders for draft classes. That way you don’t have to worry about 70 players coming out with an 80+ overall rating.

I also used screen shots from NCAA 14, because I feel like having pictures adds more depth to the game. I know that EA has their dispute with the NCAA, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get colleges to “ok” them using their uniforms and logos. (2k did it)

6. Stats- Currently Maddens’ stat tracking is subpar to say the least. This menu allows you to look up stats similar to the way Madden has it now, the only difference is, it will track everything year to year, and have stats from historical players. If you want to look up how Steve Young did in 1995, you should be able to find Steve Young under 49ers all-time stat list, and find him. Select him, and his player card will tell you his stats season by season and all of his awards and accomplishments.

Along with this, team stat tracking will be a thing. No more will you jump from one season to the net, and lose EVERYTHING you did the season before… If you are in the year 2024, and you want to look up the Super Bowl from 2018, just go back, select that Super Bowl, and it will give you the summary of that game.
Similar to what 2k does with Championships and awards, they have a list that goes all the way back to the 1950’s with awards, so you can see who won it each year.
Madden has never done a great job of tracking stats in previous years, and I am hoping that once they add it, they will never have to remove this feature again, because it only builds on itself.

7. Standings- This is where you find out where you rank amongst all 32 teams, conference/ division races, and some new features….

Playoff Race- Just like the real NFL, there is always some scenario for some team to make the playoffs. In here it will show you an updated playoff bracket, and what it would take for each team to secure a playoff spot.

Projections/ predictions- All the time we see espn or nfl network throw out game predictions or who will win what divisions each year. This would give you “NFL experts” predictions on how you will fair during the season. They will analyze your teams overall and measure it up to your schedule. With this, it can help in assessing coaches. So for example, if you are the 49ers, and you are expected to finish the season 4-12, but you end up going 9-7, that should be a huge motivator for you to retain that coach and let him keep building that team. Likewise for a team that is supposed to be a playoff lock, but end up finishing with a losing record. That coach will be on the hot seat.

8. Awards- I kind of got into with the stats, however in here you will find who is leading what for awards, and you will find your pro-bowl voting

9. Coaching- This is where you go to make all of your coaching moves. What kind of system will you run, depth chart, formation subs, etc etc…
10. General Manager- I kind of got into it a bit with the roster tab where you go in to do trades and free agents. But in addition to those features as a GM, you are also in charge of finding the right scouting team, coaches, and making the big roster changes.

11. Owner- In here is where you find all the big picture things for your team. This is where you come to see where you sit financially, set prices for events and everything else we have seen in Madden. Of course this is where you also go to build a new stadium, relocate your team, or design new jerseys. Also this is where you go to fire your GM if they are not achieving the success your team desires

12. Settings- Similar to what is in Madden now. Come here to set sliders, options, and everything in between to adjust your madden experience to your liking.

13. Game Tracker- This gives you a look at every game that is being player that week. If you are in Control of the Colts, and you feel like player the Dolphins vs the Saints, then click on that game, and away you go.

14. News- Just like NFL.com there are your big news stories that are front and center. I used the playoff picture as an example of some big league news.

15. Stories- Each week would be a story you can read up on. I think the story I used as an example is a little too in depth for what madden can handle right now, but it would be nice to see something like that once a week. In addition to that, you can see links below it that it will send you to somethings like:

Super Bowl XXXVII Recap- This will just bring you to the box score of the Raiders last Super bowl in 2003, where you can see MVP Dexter Jackson, or read up on Rich Gannons’ super bowl stats.

Derek Carrs’ MVP Season- This will bring you to Carrs’ player profile where you can read up on his stats.

Raider Playoff History- This will bring you to a list of all the Raiders playoffs games, where you can see that big gap from the 2002 season, all the way to 2016.

16. Headlines- This is where other stories/ news clippings can be found. I used a story on Saquon Barkley of Penn State. All the story is, is to let you know that his stock is on the rise, or that he may have received some honors or awards.

What do you think? What did I miss? What would you like to see added to a madden menu?

[montesixpac]

I didn't get a chance to read through everything, but I like it. Sure beats what we have. I think it would be cool to be able to track what each draft prospect is doing in their college career even if it just shows what they had for stats each week and possibly week to week you have players moving up and down the board.

[iFnotWhyNoT]

I like it. I like it a lot.


Reminds me of older madden where I could listen to the radio broadcast and newspaper style info, I loved that game. I like the NFL.com style main hub. If they ever implement this type of UI, I hope Madden can use the NFL Network layouts and packages for video and highlight's portion of the game if they ever get a highlights or recap feature back.

Also, a great new feature with the NFL.com style hub would be to have a real time simulating schedule where you can speed up 1 o'clock grouped games by 2x,4x, or 8x speed or normal simulation and then 4 o'clock games and so on. Having the ability to just jump in and "watch" or "play" any of the games. Kind of like this.

[King Gro23]

Great post; we can only dream though right!!


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[CM Hooe]

Right, so where's the "Play Game" button?

I'm sure it's described in the long description, but my point is this: a UI which a new user who has never seen it before can't figure out how to use at first glance without a text description is not a well-designed UI. I don't know how to use this UI to manage my one team I control without reading a manual. The things I want to do in a franchise - play a game, manage my roster, improve my players - should be readily evident on the first screen I see and immediately accessible.

Criticize the Things To Do paradigm all you want for its lack of atmosphere, but with that I can at least get to any action item which requires my immediate attention - playing games, spending XP, receiving trade offers, reacting to injuries, negotiating player contracts, etc. - in zero button presses. The items requiring my immediate attention are shoved right in my face the moment I load my franchise. It is nothing if not efficient, and anyone who sees it will immediately understand it.

I recognize the completely valid concern about the lack of atmosphere provided by the UI for single-player franchises, and this proposal definitely does a good job of addressing that concern. However, given how slow Madden's underlying UI tech is (even on PS4 Pro), all this new design does is get in my way.

[Toupal]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Right, so where's the "Play Game" button? I'm sure it's described in the long description, but my point is this: a UI which a new user who has never seen it before can't figure out how to use at first glance without a text description is not a well-designed UI. I don't know how to use this UI to manage my one team I control without reading a manual. The things I want to do in a franchise - play a game, manage my roster, improve my players - should be readily evident on the first screen I see and immediately accessible. Criticize the Things To Do paradigm all you want for its lack of atmosphere, but with that I can at least get to any action item which requires my immediate attention - playing games, spending XP, receiving trade offers, reacting to injuries, negotiating player contracts, etc. - in zero button presses. The items requiring my immediate attention are shoved right in my face the moment I load my franchise. It is nothing if not efficient, and anyone who sees it will immediately understand it. I recognize the completely valid concern about the lack of atmosphere provided by the UI for single-player franchises, and this proposal definitely does a good job of addressing that concern. However, given how slow Madden's underlying UI tech is (even on PS4 Pro), all this new design does is get in my way.

Too easy...

We get the best of both worlds, and we don't have to terminate the current way of moving week to week.

[SmashMan]

I agree that Franchise needs a lot of work visually, but this mockup is just information overload. There's so much presented and no clear focus to "progress" in the mode. (Progress in this case referring to moving forward with weekly objectives.)

Unsurprisingly (since it's based on NFL.com), this type of layout seems like it'd be a good fit for a PC game. As a mockup for a console controller experience, I don't think it works.


Sent from my iPad using Operation Sports

[TheBleedingRed21]

Quote: Originally Posted by Toupal

Too easy... We get the best of both worlds, and we don't have to terminate the current way of moving week to week.

Sorry man but it's not that easy, and to be quite frank, that would look horrible as an actual user interface.

There is a reason those are websites that you used as a base, it just doesn't work. But don't get me wrong, id love for all that info to be in, just in an easy to access interface.