Haitian fans were watching the same historic World Cup moment from different cities without a shared digital home.
Case study
FootLakay
A mobile-first World Cup 2026 prediction and fan platform for the Haitian diaspora, built to turn matchday into a shared ritual across four languages and two continents.
I owned the product from research framing and IA through front-end implementation, Supabase architecture, and live launch.
The core experience centers predictions, Fan Zone posts, language parity, and identity tools instead of another generic score app.
The live app includes seven core surfaces, four localized languages, automated grading, and built-in ethical guardrails.
My contribution
- Framed the product around a real diaspora audience connected to Journal la Diaspora rather than invented personas.
- Designed the information architecture around seven thumb-friendly surfaces: fixtures, predictions, Fan Zone, photo frame, sponsors, Pè Thomas, and profile.
- Built the front end and secure Supabase back end, including Edge Functions, Row-Level Security, scheduled grading, and API key protection.
Challenge
For the Haitian diaspora, the 2026 World Cup is more than sport. It is identity, memory, and community. But fans are spread across Florida, New York, Montreal, Paris, and beyond, often following the same matchday alone or inside fragmented social channels.
The product needed to create a daily reason to return, make fans feel part of one crowd, and support French, English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole without treating Creole as an afterthought.
Audience
Checks scores on a phone between work and family. The product needed a fast path from opening the app to making a prediction.
Posts in groups, reacts publicly, and helps the energy spread. Fan Zone and photo frames give this user visible ways to participate.
Moves between Creole, French, English, and Spanish. The interface needed real localization instead of a single default language.
Success signals
I optimized the product around behavior that would prove the experience was working, not just screens that looked complete.
- Daily habit: matchday content is always visible on open, and prediction takes only a few taps.
- Belonging: community activity, photos, reactions, and identity tools make the app feel populated.
- Trust: scoring rules are transparent and grading is automated so points do not feel manually controlled.
- Inclusion: Haitian Creole has the same product weight as French, English, and Spanish.
Information architecture
Fixtures and Predictions handle the highest-frequency matchday actions: check the schedule, make a pick, and track points.
Fan Zone and Photo Frame create visible community moments that move the product beyond a private score utility.
Sponsors, Pè Thomas, and Profile support monetization, onboarding, language, consent, and role-gated admin tools.
Design decisions
Predictions are designed as a fast matchday habit, with transparent rules and automated grading so the scoring feels consistent and fair.
The social surface is central in the IA because the main value is belonging: photos, reactions, and public celebration around Haiti.
Layouts were designed to survive longer French and Creole strings, keeping all four languages at feature parity.
Feature rationale
Group filters reduce the cost of finding relevant matches while Edge Functions keep third-party API credentials off the client.
Fans can turn personal pride into shareable branded content, which creates a lightweight growth loop around the platform.
A culturally familiar guide lowers onboarding friction for users who may not want to read a formal help center.
Engineering decisions
- Routed match data through Supabase Edge Functions so the API-Sports key never reaches the browser.
- Used scheduled pg_cron jobs to grade predictions automatically when results become final.
- Designed an 18+ confirmation and no-stakes model so the prediction experience stays clearly outside gambling behavior.
- Integrated sponsor visibility as a calm product surface instead of an interruptive ad pattern.
Visual system
The visual language uses Haitian national identity without turning the product into a poster. The blue and red palette creates immediate cultural recognition, while the UI stays mobile-first, high-contrast, and dense enough for live match data.
- Primary actions and navigation sit in thumb reach for one-handed mobile use.
- Cards keep live data scannable so scores, predictions, and community activity do not compete visually.
- Components were checked against longer French and Creole strings, not only English copy.
Selected product direction
Outcome
FootLakay shipped to production as a complete multilingual fan product designed and built by one person.
- Delivered a live end-to-end product from research through implementation.
- Created full feature parity across French, English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
- Made trust and fairness part of the experience through server-side API protection, RLS, and automated scoring.