Crown
Crown
COMPETITIVE GAMING PLATFORM
Just like real sports, eSport teams have analysts, coaches, substitute players, and team managers to help organize teams and make sure that players are able to play at a top-tier level. Professional gaming is something many gamers wish they could pursue for a living, however, it’s an ambition that is simply way too difficult and troublesome to reach. So, how might we design an opportunity that allows non-professional gamers of all different types of skill levels to experience the competitiveness and grandiosity that comes with Esports gaming?
Before I started coming up with design solutions, it was important that I learn from and become empathetic with the end-users. In this case, I am designing for gamers who find themselves to be casual but still enjoy seeking out those competitive experiences to give a change of pace. I used many different methods in the process of designing the user experience, including a general quantitative and qualitative survey, case study interviews, a user heuristic analysis of a competitor platform, and lastly, card sorting trials. All these different tasks I performed ensured that I would have sufficient information to know what to design and how to do it. Especially after learning that many users would be interested in quitting their current profession to pursue playing video games professionally, I recognized that there is a real space for my design to fit into.
The Crown gaming platform is a way for friends to get together and have an enhanced competitive experience. The designed centerpiece is an interactive prototype that showcases the interfaces and functionality, along with the user experience behind it. Users would be able to create teams, participate in tournaments, and win prizes for winning and participating, so there is gamification involved as well in order to capture higher interests.
CONCEPT
For many people, including me, video games are an important part of life. I wanted to design something that would be able to improve those experiences all-around and make gaming for individuals greater than it was before. In my concept mapping, my goal was to improve social gaming, but throughout the process, I switched my focus to a more competitive nature.
QUALITATIVE/QUANTITATIVE SURVEY
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.
USER INTERVIEWS
After collecting information from the surveys, I began to further investigate the needs and frustrations of gamers by doing user interviews, which allowed me to gather more specific information. I tested four users who all play video games routinely to see what they think of their current gaming experience and how they would like to improve in the future.
COMPETITIVE USER HEURISTICS
I looked at one leading platform, Battlefy, which is focused on powering esports experiences for all gamers alike. I asked users to go through Battlefy and give their feedback on the overall flow and design. As they went through, I took note of positive and negative comments they made regarding the platform and its user experience. This allowed me to see how can I incorporate those comments into my process in improving the user experience for competitive gaming.
CARD SORTING & WIREFRAMING
Using Post-It Notes, I used the method of card sorting in order to prototype the user interface that will be accompanying all the research that I’ve gathered on user gaming experiences. I asked participants organize different elements of the UI into categories that makes sense to them and it greatly helped me in designing the layout for different UI components.
