What Are Clustered Buttons?

The clustered buttons feature in Nacsport basically allows you to create a button template which contains overlapping buttons which, when pressed, will not only register the action assigned to the top button, but also any buttons lying beneath them.

What this means is that with one click, you can register various different categories and descriptors at the same time. Believe us when we say that this can save a lot of time. If you’re analysing a match which contains a few thousand tags, each made with a button click, to save a few hundred of those individual clicks is a reason to celebrate! 

Where to Find Clustered Buttons

The clustered buttons feature can be utilised in the professional versions of Nacsport: Pro and Elite.

But, there is another option for those who don’t need the power of our professional tools but would like to cluster their buttons...Nacsport Tag&view.

Yes, our iOS app contains a few tools that are only usually available in our flagship products. This could be a more economical solution for amatuer or semi-pro analysts.

How to Create Clustered Buttons

Clustered buttons are very easy to create, it’s simply a matter of placing one button on top of the other and layering them appropriately. You do this by setting the “Vertical Order”. What’s this? Well, it determines which buttons will be on the top, middle or bottom layers.

You can also create clustered buttons in a grid form which allows you to click on a certain area of the top layer to register different things from the lower layers. We know this might be difficult to envision so, we advise taking a look at the following video from our friends at AnalysisPro, where they explain how cluster buttons can be created and organised. Click and watch from 4:55 to 13:15 for the full explanation.

Also, take a look at this great video from Inside Sports Analysis, a YouTube channel dedicated to all things Nacsport by Ste Mills, former analyst at Castleford Tigers, currently at Warrington Wolves. In it, he explains exactly what clustered buttons are and how they can be used to great effect.

Example Templates - An Exclusive Offer from AnalysisPro

In this example template for Rugby Union, created for Nacsport Pro by AnalysisPro, the clustered buttons are used to register both categories and descriptors in relation to areas on the pitch where actions happen. Underneath the types of possession categories (the top layer of buttons), there is also a team possession button. Between the category buttons are specific descriptor buttons, so that the pitch location origin data can be added into each category too.

Check out this great video, which explains the various features of this template:

To get a free copy of this template and the associated Dashboard (even if you just want to understand the mechanics of both!), contact info@analysispro.com. You'll be subscribed to their monthly newsletter to keep up to date with their latest news and tips too!

More Example Templates Containing Clustered Buttons

Ok, let’s take a look at how cluster buttons might look on your finished template.

In this example, we have our clustered buttons arranged in a grid shape on the left of the template with the descriptors “Good” and “Bad” running vertically under the horizontally placed basketball plays.

Clicking on “Flex” where it intersects with the green button underneath it will register this category with “Good” automatically added as a descriptor. On the other hand, clicking where it intersects with the red line will register it as a bad flex. Clicking between the lines, where there is no intersection will simply register it as “Flex” without the accompanying descriptor.

This basketball template is similar to the first. We can see the cluster buttons placed on the right hand side with the green, yellow and red descriptor buttons being used to describe plays as “Good”, “Ok” and “Bad”.

In this example, for American football, the clustered buttons are actually placed over the graphic descriptor, allowing us to add additional positional data to the XY data collected by this tool. The top layers of buttons have a certain amount of opacity applied, making it easier for us to see the solid descriptor at the bottom. A beautiful example of a template!

Conclusion

As you can see, clustered buttons are an amazing tool which can save an analyst a lot of time when tagging a game. This is an extremely versatile tool which can be used in myriad ways to improve and augment the collected data for analysis.

If you are interested in the advanced tools available in Nacsport Pro and Elite, of which clustered buttons are only one, get in contact with us today to discuss your options.

If you have any questions about anything you’ve seen in this article, feel free to contact us through the above link or through any of our social media channels.

Thanks for reading!