Volunteers: the UX of a sporting event?

We talk a lot about the course. About aid stations. About timing. About signage. About technology. Everything that, on paper, structures a participant's experience at a sporting event.

But there's one part of that experience we measure far less: the people who are there to bring it to life. The volunteer pointing you the right way. The one cheering you up a climb. The one handing you a cup of water at the aid station. The one saying "come on, it's almost over," when you both know it really isn't.

Small interactions you never forget

On paper, these are small interactions. A few seconds, a gesture, a word. And yet they're often what stays with you long after the race. Not the finish-line clock. Not the finisher t-shirt. The person who, at one exact point on the course, turned a hard moment into something you still remember months later.

To give a sense of scale: a major urban marathon commonly mobilizes between 1,500 and more than 3,000 volunteers to staff the course, the aid stations and the route markings (Detroit Free Press Marathon, Marine Corps Marathon). That's not a logistics footnote. It's often more people than the marketing team of most brands that sponsor these same races.

Volunteers are part of the user experience

And that's what I find interesting about looking at volunteers a little differently: they're part of the event's UX, its user experience. The term comes from digital products, where it describes everything a person feels while interacting with a product or service. Here, it applies to the event as a whole: volunteers are part of it, on the same level as the course route or the usability of a tracking app.

• They embody the event on the ground, far more concretely than a logo on a start arch.
• They can reassure, guide and encourage, at the exact moments a participant actually needs it.
• They pass on, without even realizing it, the organization's identity and values, simply through the way they welcome people.

And above all, their role doesn't stop at the finish line. It's the same logic as the journey designed for every runner, from the first email to the finish: a coherent organization takes care of everyone's experience, not just the end customer's.

What you actually remember

By the end of an event, you don't only remember the course, the time, or the aid stations. You also remember the people who helped you. The one who pointed you the right way when you'd lost it. The one who cheered you on just as you were starting to give up. The team of volunteers that made the whole organization feel like it had really been thought through. And that's also what makes you want to come back the following year.

A good event isn't just one that runs smoothly. It's one you remember fondly.

What if we designed the volunteer experience the way we design the participant experience?

That raises a real question for organizers: do we think hard enough about the volunteer experience, so that volunteers can, in turn, create a good experience for participants? Training. Briefing. Signage. Recognition. Communication. Equipment. But above all, giving them the means and the motivation to play their role.

Because an event can have the best website in the world, the best tracking app, the slickest communications. If the experience doesn't hold up on the ground, participants will remember it, and that memory is what spreads afterward, far more than any campaign.

Personal takeaway

This subject strikes a particular chord with me because it's a reminder of something we too often forget in communications: the best social proof is never the kind you stage. It's the kind that already exists, sincerely, on the ground. The communicator's job isn't to manufacture it. It's to know how to see it, take care of it, and give it room to tell its own story.