Transforming bored time into joyful experience

Context \

Role

Product Designer

Duration

3 Weeks, 2021

Core Teammates

Yilai(Game Operations)
Jiao(BD)
Youqiang(Interaction Designer)
Qin(Project Manager)

Based on the mobile game feasibility analysis by Yilai, we found that the game distribution business on TCL mobile phones(Alcatel) has a large potential to monetize, so my team considered building a mobile game platform named Game Zone.

This project will be constructed in several stages. The first stage is to launch the mini-game platform MVP in a short time to acquire users. 

Challenge \

In most situations, mini-game players only have limited time to play games. Therefore the biggest challenge for me is:

How might we design a mini-game platform to help players find games quickly?

Solution \

Let us check out the main features.

Accessing the recently played games easily

Users can click the recently played games on the top of the page.

Exploring more mini-games with just one click

If users dislike the recommended games on the homepage, they could refresh the section to explore more recommendations.

Searching targets directly

When users have a specific target in mind, they can search for it in the search bar.

Search - No result

When there is no matched result, the system would display recommendations to let users try other games and relieve users' frustration.

Starting with popular games if users don't have targets

Users can also pick up the game from the most popular games.

Metric \

The Game Zone MVP has been shipped in 2021 and it had a great result. Therefore, my colleagues will continue to collect users’ and data feedback to refine the product.

2.2 Million
300%
Pre-installations on overseas TCL mobile devices
DAU is 3 times higher than the Original object
Then, let me share the project with you.

Discover \

What if I rarely play mini-games? -> Conducted user interviews to emphasize with users.

Because I rarely play mini-games, I don't know much about the users. Considering the limited time, I collaborated with a UX researcher Jiaxin to conduct five simplified user interviews with colleagues who are not in product teams. Besides, I sought advice from the senior game operation manager.

Get insights from competitors.

Because of the limited time, we did not conduct comprehensive user interviews. Therefore, I used competitive analysis to confirm some of the product findings I listed above.

Competitive analysis table


From competitive analysis, I knew what features competitors have. Also, I can confirm my user research hypothesis that searching, playing recent games, browsing recommendations, and referring to popular games are common scenarios.

Define \

Scope the design problems

I synthesized the information from the discovery stage and then scoped the problems with stakeholders to make sure we are on the same page.

Design \

At first, I made some wireframes to visualize the solutions and collected feedback from different stakeholders.

Final design \

Reflection \

Adjust the ideal UCD design process for real-world projects.

At work, it is impossible to follow every step of the ideal design process. I need to work with the stakeholders to select the appropriate methods and modify the methods to deal with current problems.

Present design to stakeholders early

In the beginning stages, it is better to use sketches and low-fidelity wireframes to present ideas, because it can prevent me from spending too much time adjusting high-fidelity UIs.

Credits \

The mini-game logos and banners in the hi-fi UIs are from game providers’ Facebook pages and official websites. 

ContextSolutionMetricDiscoverDefineDesignFinal DesignReflection