Optimised Gaming
UX Immersion Course - CareerFoundry
Gamers wanted a more seamless and efficient experience involving easier access to their games, cross-platform functionality and enriched community features.
Role
Research & Design
What was the outcome
Enhanced gaming experience, streamlined purchasing and improved library management.
What were the goals
Grow revenue
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Attract a larger user base by providing a one-stop shop for gamers.
Reduce effort
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Create a single platform for gamers to browse, purchase, and manage games without switching between multiple platforms.
Facilitate smart shopping
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Build a tool for comparing game prices across stores, simplifying the hunt for the best deals and discounts.
What was done
Conducted desk research on various gaming platforms and digital wallets to make informed decisions about the next steps in the discovery phase.
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Key insights: Having numerous stores creates several drawbacks for users. Managing multiple accounts, libraries, and payment methods across different platforms can be confusing and frustrating. Additionally, exclusive deals between stores may limit the games available to users and force them to use multiple platforms to access all desired content.
Designed a comprehensive survey (90+ responses) to gather information about gamer habits and preferences.
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Key insights: A large majority of gamers play on PC and consoles. They use different online stores to purchase their games or subscribe to services such as EA Play. There is a 50/50 split between gamers who purchase using a credit card and those who use a digital wallet such as PayPal.
Conducted 5 interviews with gamers to learn more about their pain points, frustrations, wants and needs around the current gaming market.
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Key insights: Gamers care about security when buying, so the content should come only from platforms with a good track record, e.g., Steam, Epic Games, etc. They want the ability to use multiple payment methods, save their payment details on the fly and keep track of all their records.
Designed IA and refined it through a card-sorting activity with users.
*Images below: sitemap before and after card-sorting.
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Key insights: Reduced the overall interaction cost by +50%, consolidating the pages gamers would use into 3 main categories compared to 6.
Created a proof of concept which was tested with gamers and further refined based on their feedback.
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Key insights: Users understood the app's value proposition, but they encountered several navigation and orientation issues, which were documented in a rainbow sheet report and prioritised for fixing based on severity.
Orientation issue example (high severity) & suggested change: After describing the task of gifting a game copy to a friend, users tried clicking on the library tab from the top navigation bar to start the process, although nothing happened. Three participants had to guess that the store would be the next place to do so, while two got blocked and couldn’t complete the task.
If the users already own the game and want to gift a copy to one of their friends, then it would make sense to let them search within their library and purchase it as a gift from there, even if the process is similar to that within the store.
