Crown

Competitive Gaming Dashboard Application

Professional eSports teams rely on analysts and coaches to maximize player performance. Crown bridges the gap between elite competition and everyday gamers, offering players of all skill levels the thrill of competitive gaming.

Type

Desktop Application

Role

UX Designer User Researcher

Tools

Figma Adobe XD Adobe Illustrator Adobe Photoshop

Date

January 2019 to May 2019

Crown is a gaming platform that elevates competitive play among friends. The interactive prototype demonstrates key interfaces and user experience elements. Players can form teams, compete in tournaments, and earn rewards—combining social connection with gamification to enhance engagement.

Concept Mapping

As someone who sees gaming as a meaningful and social experience, I initially explored ways to enhance casual play and community connection. Through the concept mapping process, however, I identified a stronger opportunity to support competitive engagement among groups of friends.

With the design question, “How might we enhance competitive gaming among friends by creating a platform that fosters team play, motivation, and meaningful rewards?” in mind, I explored various directions and refined the concept based on user needs.

Research and Insights

My initial phase of gathering research on users and their gaming experiences consisted of a survey. The survey asked simple questions on what their gaming life is but also asked more subjective questions to better understand my users’ needs and how I can create a solution to possibly fulfill those needs.

Building on those insights, I conducted user interviews with four routine gamers to dive deeper into their frustrations and aspirations. These conversations revealed valuable context about their motivations and opportunities for enhancing their competitive play.

I conducted a heuristic evaluation of Battlefy, a leading esports platform, by guiding participants through key workflows and collecting real-time feedback. Their observations on usability issues, navigation pain points, and missing features directly informed the design direction and improvements implemented in Crown.

Designing the Prototype

I used card sorting with Post-it Notes to prototype the UI based on insights from my research. Participants grouped interface elements into categories that made sense to them, helping inform the structure and layout of key components.

Wireframes for dashboard screens

High-Fidelity UI Design

Takeaways

Social and competitive goals often conflict — Initial user research showed that blending casual social features with competitive mechanics diluted the experience, leading to a refined focus on team-based competitive play. Gamers prioritize clarity and efficiency — Usability testing of Battlefy revealed that users value streamlined navigation and fast access to core features, which directly influenced Crown’s interface structure. Card sorting revealed unexpected patterns — Participants grouped features in ways that challenged my initial assumptions, leading to a more user-aligned layout for the dashboard and tournament flow.

Social and competitive goals often conflict — Initial user research showed that blending casual social features with competitive mechanics diluted the experience, leading to a refined focus on team-based competitive play. Gamers prioritize clarity and efficiency — Usability testing of Battlefy revealed that users value streamlined navigation and fast access to core features, which directly influenced Crown’s interface structure. Card sorting revealed unexpected patterns — Participants grouped features in ways that challenged my initial assumptions, leading to a more user-aligned layout for the dashboard and tournament flow.

Check out the video walkthrough of the dashboard prototype