GameWave

Level up your gaming experience.

Overview

For this project, I took on the challenge of developing a mobile app that addresses common challenges faced by adult arcade goers during their arcade visits. As someone who grew up frequenting arcades, I saw this a great opportunity to address the gap between arcades and their users.

By conducting in-depth research and employing innovative problem-solving techniques, I developed a mobile app that delivers a seamless experience catering to both casual players and dedicated enthusiasts titled GameWave. GameWave offers an extensive catalog of available games, rewards, and helps users maximize their overall play time spent at arcades.

The Problem

Adults who frequent arcades seek to maximize their gameplay instead of searching for games that aren't being used. Frequently, their favorite games are occupied by others, leading to frustration with wait times. Additionally, users experience frustration with current arcade apps that are often deemed unusable, lack information on new and current game titles, and don't address their needs.

The Solution

After identifying key user pain points, I came up with a mobile app that will improve the experience of adult arcade enthusiasts.  

GameWave is an arcade app designed to enhance the arcade experience for users at any participating arcade, enabling them to easily discover their favorite games and minimize wait times for gameplay. Catering to a diverse customer base, from casual arcade enthusiasts to dedicated gamers aged 18-45, the app offers a seamless way to indulge in arcade entertainment.

Category

Product Design, UX/UI Design

My role

UX Researcher, UX Designer, Visual Designer, Logo Designer

Tools

Figma, Illustrator

View High Fidelity Prototype

Research Findings

Waiting for games leads to frustration.

I conducted interviews with a select group of participants to better understand their needs when visiting an arcade. One of the main user groups I identified was young adults who enjoy going to arcades but dislike waiting around for new or preferred games to be available.

Participants also revealed that they have to physically go to an arcade and memorize what games are available in order to better plan their arcade visits. This can be frustrating as users may not know if the arcades have what they are looking for, such as family-style carnival games, fighting games, rhythm games, or other genres. Sometimes users do not understand game instructions if they are written in a language they do not speak, which is often found with imported games.

These participants all described the ideal arcade experience as being able to find new/preferred games efficiently, and the games being fully operational and available to play.

Long Wait Times

When users locate the game they want to play, it's often being used by other players and can lead to a frustrating experience for the user who has limited time to spend at the arcade.

Lack of Information

Arcades don’t always tell users what new games are available or lack a comprehensive list of games the user may be interested in. Often users spend the first 10 minutes not playing games, but walking the arcade to see what may interest them.

Limited Instructions

Arcade games are sometimes unclear when it comes to instructions, or are in different languages that the user doesn’t understand.

Both target demographics are hungry for information

Based on my learnings from the research, I created two personas as my target users. My first persona is a single gaming enthusiast, while the second persona is a casual game enjoyer with a family.

I chose to put them into two groups because they have very different needs and considerations.

Designing with empathy

By organizing qualitative data into visual representations, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of my users' needs, emotions, and behaviors. This enabled me to empathize with the user more effectively, guiding me to create solutions that resonate with my target audience.

Although I worked on this project alone, providing empathy maps to in a team environment could facilitate collaboration and create alignment and empathy-driven decision-making throughout the design process.

Opportunities to address severe market gaps

By analyzing competitors' products, marketing tactics, and customer experience, I was able to identify opportunities for differentiation and improvement when coming up for ways to address user pain points. Conducting a competitive audit enabled me to gain valuable insights into GameWave's competitors' strategies, strengths, and weaknesses.

Link to Competitive Audit

Design Approach

After gaining insight into users' pain points and challenges, I dove into brainstorming sessions to address "how might we" questions. The primary aim was to streamline the user experience, making the app easily accessible and user-friendly.

By designing an intuitive arcade app that was truly user focused, I aimed to simplify the process of discovering and accessing arcade information on mobile devices. GameWave allows users to effortlessly navigate the app, find games that excite them, and receive notifications when their favorite games are available to be played. This optimizes users' time spent at arcades and fosters a more well-rounded gaming community.

"How might we streamline the process for users to discover their favorite games amidst a wide selection?"

"How might we design intuitive features that enable users to easily check the status of available games?"

"How might we address potential challenges or frustrations users when navigating the app?

Storyboarding

In the development of GameWave, I utilized storyboards to visualize and comprehend the user's journey, envisioning how they would interact with the app in various scenarios. By depicting key moments and user interactions, these storyboards provided invaluable insights into potential pain points and opportunities for improvement, guiding the refinement of GameWave's user experience to ensure seamless navigation and enhanced engagement.

User Journey Mapping

This visual representation noted critical touchpoints and emotions throughout the user's interaction, helping identify pain points and opportunities for optimizing their journey. By mapping out these pathways, I could tailor GameWave's features to enhance user satisfaction and streamline the arcade experience effectively.

User Flow

Because the purpose of GameWave is specifically to allow users to reduce wait times for games, it was important to keep the user flow very simple and easy. Considering that the users have to maximize their time playing games instead of setting reminders, I had to avoid making the app more complex than it needed to be.

Wireframes, Prototypes, and User Testing

After conducting thorough user research, I shifted my focus to wireframing, prototyping, and user testing to see how my designs would translate to users. Additionally, I planned to utilize their feedback to improve the final design of GameWave.

Paper Wireframes

This initial phase involved sketching out the key components, such as the main dashboard, games list, and push notifications. Utilizing feedback from research participants ensured early alignment with user goals.

Low Fidelity Prototype

Transitioning from paper wireframes, I translated the concepts into a low-fidelity digital prototype. This phase focused on refining the user flow and interactions, incorporating insights from research. Using tools like Figma and Adobe Illustrator, I created a simplified version of the app, emphasizing functionality over aesthetics.

This was my first time using Figma to create a prototype. My excitement and curiosity allowed me to not only create a prototype that was fully fleshed out, but also add a drop-down menu component that was not mentioned in my curriculum until we moved on to future projects.

View Low Fidelity Prototype

User Testing

In order for me to gather feedback, identify usability issues, and validate design assumptions, user testing after creating a low-fidelity prototype was essential. It helped me refine the user experience and ensure the final product meets users' needs effectively, minimizing the risk of costly redesigns later in development.

Affinity Diagram

Creating an affinity diagram proved incredibly useful when organizing user feedback, observations, and insights, into meaningful themes. By grouping related observations together, the affinity diagram helped me identify patterns, trends, and common themes emerging from user feedback that led to informed decision making and creating a more user-centered product.

High Fidelity Prototype

With the foundation established through the low-fidelity prototype, the next step involved elevating the design to a high-fidelity level. Using design tools like Figma and Illustrator, I incorporated visual elements, color schemes, and detailed UI components. The high-fidelity prototype aimed to provide a realistic representation of the final product, considering not only functionality but also the visual appeal and brand identity of GameWave.

The overall layout of the Home Screen has been refined and cleaned up, adding more negative space and easy to understand navigation. Taking a note from Spotify’s UI, users are able to see recent games played and favorites.

Each game thumbnail is clickable and provides detail on a Game Detail page. The bottom buttons have been replaced by a Card Balance button for continuity and a more minimalist approach.

View High Fidelity Prototype

Next Steps: Further User Testing and Iterations

Due to time constraints, conducting further prototype tests became and iterations would be unfeasible. Should time permit, I would enlist participants to test the high fidelity prototype and collect their feedback for continuous improvement.

Accessibility considerations such as translations, user-guides on how to play games, and more can be revisited if necessary.

Key Takeaways

Impact

The app has simplified the ability for users to find information about arcade games quickly and efficiently while providing straightforward information. The ability to set reminder notifications for games being used can be a benefit for all arcade app users.

Final Thoughts

This project taught me how deep the UX process goes in terms of research, solving problems, and listening to users to navigate solutions that can be made through design. Ideas that seemed important at first weren’t as necessary as they turned out to be through my research findings. As I adapted my project to the needs of the users, the end result was different, yet more interesting and thoughtful than originally planned.

Next Project: May Sky Massage

View Project