Corey Dasilva
My contribution to this project

Role

I worked as the Lead product designer on this project alongside 2 front-end developer, one back-end developer, one product manager , and one chief product officer.

I was responsible for the following roles;

  • UI Designer

  • UX Researcher

  • UX Designer

  • UX Writer

  • Brand designer

Problem Space

Context

Problem Background

The video games industry has consistently seen growth for the past couple of years, despite the most recent and ever-evolving pandemic, to eventually reach $203.1 billion via consumer spending (+5.4% year on year) according to a newzoo article. This growth is evidence of the importance that digital games have on forming and maintaining friendships. An example of this can be seen in this article from The Washington Post that details how video games helped friendships thrive during the pandemic, which caused a year of isolation and loneliness. 


Why tackle this particular problem?

Asking the probing questions

Through consumer research in the form of surveys and interviews with 10 interviewees, we have learned that older gamers (+19) have a difficult time syncing schedules with their friends to create these gaming sessions, resulting in 44% of interviewees stating that they don’t play video games with friends as often as they would like. These users are tired of their current methods due to inefficiency and complexity, with methods such as utilizing different group chats from different platforms such as iMessage, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. The main issues that arise with these methods of planning are a lack of responses, late responses, or a significant amount of back-and-forth messages dedicated to planning. A frequent scenario that all of the interviewees were familiar with is having conversations with their friend group on what time the group will be online, only for nobody to get online due to other circumstances which leave the group yearning for answers. This is a problem worth addressing now because it was found through consumer research that gaming is a hobby that takes up a significant amount of time in the lives of all of these users, ranging anywhere from 15-20 hours a week, hence, solving the initial pain point of scheduling these gamer sessions with friends can be extremely valuable to these users.

we have narrowed down specific reasons why gamers struggle to play games with friends: 

  • Conflicting and always-changing schedules

  • No specific form of communicating availability

  • Not having friends who play the same games as them


Pain Point

understanding the needs, goals, and requirements of the users

Defining the problem

User stories serve as a guide to focus on specific user behaviors, needs, or objectives. it is a way to synthesize this information and create a clear and user-centric understanding of what users are looking for in the design solution. With these user stories, i was able to empathize with the target audience, prioritize features and functionalities, and ensure that the design addresses the most important user needs.

Some of the key user stories narrowed down from the research phase are listed below

  1. As a user, I want to be able to add my friends, so that I can coordinate with them on when to play.

  2. As a user, I want to be able to see what days/times my friends will be online that sync up with my availability so that I can propose a time to play.

  3. As a user, I want to be able to add my gaming availability, so that I can keep track.

  4. As a user, I want to easily have a view that summarizes and proposes the best time to play with a specific group, so that I don’t have to waste time asking.

  5. As a user, I want to create groups of friends, so that I can separate my friend groups as needed.

  6. As a user, I want to be able to message my friends within the app, to help with coordinating schedules.

  7. As a user, I want to be able to find new people based on the games I play, so that I can make new friends that play the same game.

  8. As a user, I want to be able to create a profile, so that my friends can find me.

Information Architecture and User flow

Information Architecture

User flow

For a much clearer view of the user flow for each user story. Click the button below

Visual design



Low fidelity design

After carrying out extensive research to gather insight on what our potential users need. A user flow to perform key tasks was mapped out, a paper sketch to give form to how we want the interface to look, wireframe showing the skeletal design of how the app will feel. We had a lot of iterations on the low-fidelity design as we carried out usability testing with potential users and that afforded us the chance to iterate our existing low-fi design

Some of the initial feedback gotten had to do with 

  • Privacy when scheduling a gaming session with friends as the first design draft displayed the thumbnail image, ID, and time booked by other users, so we had to adjust the schedule screen to do away with such details and just leave it at the time unavailable

  • Revamping how the initial landing page was so as to accurately reflect key content that would increase usability and conversion. 

  • Adjusting the way users set up their gaming time availability as the previous design provided users with the chance to schedule one timing availability per day as opposed to being able to log in multiple time availability per day.


Key mockups

High fidelity screens











Insights from user testing

Iterated screens

Insight after user testing

We conducted guerilla testing during the low-fidelity design stage to note down any friction. we found out these flaws

  • The initial home screen didn't accurately reflect key content that would entice users to want to stay so, we iterated the initial landing page to accurately reflect key content that would increase usability and conversion. 

  • The initial schedule screen made allocation for reserving day slot which was an oversight. it wouldn't fly as we wanted gamers to pick different time during the day when scheduling game time with friends. This led us to iterating the new screen to accommodate gamers to log in multiple time availability per day.

  • The Product manager drew my attention to a privacy flaw in the the design when scheduling a game session with friends. The initial design draft displayed the thumbnail image, ID, and time booked by other users, so we had to adjust the schedule screen to do away with such details (gamers ID and thumbnail image) and just leave users with to choose from the time available.


Learnings

What i learnt from this project

As a team, we learned that not everything will go according to plan and that’s okay as long as we work together to fix the issues that we come across. We’ve faced many problems during this journey from learning to navigate a 6-hour time difference, to have to build with a completely new language, and even learning how to adapt with one another.


But on a personal level,

  • I learned not to get attached to my design solution when I am receiving feedback as I am designing for the users, not myself.

  • I learned the importance of carrying out user testing early and iterating the design to correct any design flaw.

  • I learned how to back up my design decision to key stakeholders especially in cases when they see things from a different viewpoint.

  • I learned what it takes to prioritize Accessibility for all when designing a product.

  • And lastly, I learned how to prioritize design features while factoring in project constraints.


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