Game Collective
An app that empowers board game enthusiasts to manage their collections digitally and trade games locally with others in the hobby.
Project Timeline: Aug 2022 (3 weeks)
My Role: End-to-End UX/UI Designer
My Tools: Figma, Otter.Ai, Typeform, Optimal Workshop, Whimsical, Notability, Zoom, Google Suite
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(This is a personal project)
01.
OVERVIEW
Project Background
We are in the Golden Age of board games.
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Ever since the 1990’s with the emergence of the Internet, the board game industry has experienced substantial growth, reaching more people than ever before with a wide market of available board games to try out and play. Database websites like BoardGameGeek have enabled accessible information on the latest board games, with the ability to follow your favorite publishers and game designers. YouTube & Instagram have hundreds of content creators with “How To Play” and “Review” videos to empower players to make informed purchasing decisions. Crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter, Gamefound, and BackerKit, have democratized the creation of board games like never before, where the fans can support novel game concepts and have them become a physical reality.
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The Problem
Board game enthusiasts want to play more games, but their storage space is limited. Their collections are at capacity for their living situations, but they are still interested in participating in the larger hobby and want try out the latest games. Those with larger collections have a tough time managing and remembering what they have, and the current systems that try to help with that have unfriendly interfaces. Selling games is often seen a hassle, and there isn't much incentive for those to create a digital catalog of their games.
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The Challenge
How might we facilitate a space for board game fans to enjoy their game collections more with friends and/or exchange their games with ease?
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The Solution
To design an app that encourages board gamers to manage and showcase their collection digitally, and allows them to easily exchange their games, so they're able to try new games before adding them to their collection.​
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02.
RESEARCH
Research Plan
With that initial set of information, I determined the direction for the research objectives. I wanted to initially focus on their collecting and selling habits.
Collecting Behavior
1. Learn why people are passionate about board games.
2. Determine the scope of their game collections (both physical & digital catalog).
3. Understand why people inventory their board game collections digitally (or why they don’t).
4. Learn how and when people manage their digital catalog or wishlists.
5. Determine what matters most to users about their digital catalog.
Selling Behavior
6. Understand why people sell their board games.
7. Learn how people approach the online selling process for board games.
8. Determine what tasks within the selling process are challenging for people and why.
9. Understand why certain selling platforms are used to sell board games.
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User Interviews
User Interviews
For this project, all of my participants were identified through the screener survey having responded that they "love to play board games, have a collection, and consider themselves serious in the board game hobby". All of them expressed excitement over the project, which spoke volumes that I was already pursuing a worthy project. I conducted remote interviews over Zoom, with live transcripts being generated by Otter.Ai for later analysis.
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Number of Participants: 5 males
Ages: 30-37 years old
Regions: West Coast
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The central thing I wanted to identify in my user interviews is WHY DO THEY LOVE BOARD GAMES? By knowing the users' motivations for the hobby, I could build an app that feels native to that world.
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Motivations
1. SOCIAL
"I love the camaraderie of it; I love bonding over this shared experience."
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2. STRATEGIC
"The board games that I play are very strategic in nature. It's just a fun, enjoyable, controlled environment that I can pick up."
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3. IMMERSIVE
"I love the way that board games transport you to a realm, or a world, or an experience."
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4. TANGIBLE
"I really, really love my physical board game collection. There's an aesthetic look to it, like a library. I like tactile-ness of games with all the pieces I can interact with - it’s different from video games."
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Insights
Insight #1 - Friends, then Games
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This seems like a simple observation, but it’s one that I easily overlooked. People get into this hobby for the main purpose of playing games they love with their friends, and finding new games they might love to play with them next. All the administrative tasks like cataloging their games digitally or selling their games will always come second to playing a game.
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"I just love that board games bring people together."
- Tyler
Insight #2 - Visible Collections
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Board Gamers take pride in their collection. It serves as a library or an art gallery, one where people and guests can admire the box art, peruse their stack of games and exclaim “Oh I’d love to play that game next!” It’s a way of discovery among friends as they explore more games and expand their list of games they like. But most participants would agree that they have no more space right now for them to take on any new games.
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"I love going to friends’ houses and looking at their collections."
- Mark
Insight #3 - Emotional Attachment
Each game has a set of memories attached to them. Whether it was a game they always played with their dad growing up, a game with dramatic endings at game night, or a game that sustains a friendly rivalry - there is an emotional attachment with many of their games. This makes selling games online difficult.
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"There’s sentimental attachment with board games - you’ve invested time into it, you take the time to learn it. You just care that someone else is gonna take care of it."
- Tyler
Insight #4 - Give Away, Not Sell
Most of the participants preferred to just give games away, rather than sell them, despite the fact that board games are expensive these days.
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"I don't know if me giving away a game is sort of like me saying 'Oh, I don't think this is a very good game.' To ask someone to pay me for it… it just feels wrong."
- JP
Competitive Analysis
I decided to perform my user interviews first to determine what markets I should analyze.
Based on participants wishes and pain points, I looked into digital apps that stood out in the board game community as well as highlighting their different strengths to see if there were any gaps.
BoardGameGeek is the clear leader in all things board games from their database, forums, and established user base, but their legacy-inherited interface is showing its age.
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03.
IDEATE
Reframing the Problem
Initially, I went into this project thinking about ways for people to sell their older games, but as it turns out, they'd rather give them away (or find a better home for them). Some games just resonate with other people better. I had to reframe the problem statement I started with and pivot away from selling, but more toward exchanging - finding new ways for people to play games, all the while keeping their collections in check.
I’d like to explore ways to help board game enthusiasts play more new games because their collections are at capacity with games they’d already played and they’re ready to make room for others.
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I framed the above statement into as a “How Might We” statement to help imagine possible solutions.
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How might we encourage board gamer enthusiasts with already crowded game collections to find ways to play new games without having to buy them?
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User Personas
I had a clear user in mind for this product following my user interviews, so I created a User Persona to serve as my "design compass" throughout the rest of the process.​
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Sitemap
I gathered quantitative data about how users organize groups of items through a closed card sort through Optimal Workshop. I'm still learning about how to clearly list out items in card sorts, but I was able to validate some direction I was taking with the navigation layout.
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User Flows & Task Flows
It was important to me as a designer to have multiple paths to achieving the main goal of the app to accommodate differing approaches. So I charted out a user flow, with supporting task flows to break down "the whole" into more manageable sections to understand tasks.
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04.
DESIGN
Wireframes
I like to sketch out my wireframes with Notability on my iPad. The fast iterations and messy shorthand helps me not hold too tightly to any design and it's easier for me to scrap an idea once it's on the page. Below you'll see my rough low fidelity sketches to a more organized mid fidelity below.
I like to provide my client with options as I tend to create alts to explore that within Figma. Take note of the "Initiate trade offer" screens to see the differences, as well as how it evolved in the final screen.
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Brand Identity
The client needed a comprehensive brand identity for Game Collective, so I developed the logo, the color palette, and a UI Component Kit to keep a consistent ecosystem of typefaces, icons, and UI elements.​
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For the colors, I chose colors that would spark fun, energy, and the spirit of competition among friends. I wanted to set the vibrant colors against a modern blue - board games became big in the 1990's in America, and when many people think of board games, dusty box covers of Monopoly, Life, and Scrabble come to mind. I wanted this app to feel clean, modern, and approachable.
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05.
PROTOTYPE
Prototype Preview
Once high fidelity wireframes were finished, I connected key screens together to form 3 distinct task flows that I wanted to test. I found this process to be even more intricate than my previous project, as I had to build out various permutations, variant changes, and routes within the app.
It was important that the design allowed users to pursue tasks in a variety of ways, rather than forced into one task flow. Flexibility is what set this app apart from BoardGameGeek's rigid sequence of interactions to perform certain tasks. Either interact with the prototype in the button or watch the walkthrough video.
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06.
TEST & ITERATE
Usability Testing
I had to quickly validate my product with the prototype finished since my deadline was approaching. My main success metric was that users would complete tasks without any errors, noted by any mis-clicks or unsuccessful navigation.​ I gathered several participants from my user interviews to test.
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Task Flows to Complete:
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Add Game to Collection
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Trade a Game via Exchange Screen
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Lend a Game via Collection Screen
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Analysis & Prioritization
Below was my process for organizing & sorting through all the user feedback I received from the various task flows that were virtually tested. This method of analysis through affinity mapping and grid prioritization gave me essential first steps in iterating my prototype toward greater usability. This method pushed my design further, beyond what I (the designer) am able to detect initially.
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Value Revisions
Usability Testing is one of my favorite steps during the process - it connects the person to what you've been building FOR them.
With the findings & feedback I received, I listed them out, grouped them by issue, want, or function, and set up a priority matrix to determine which updates need to come first based on the severity and frequency it came up in testing. Check out the link below for a closer look!
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Improvements
Below are 3 main improvements that represent a culmination of issue fixes seen in the matrix above to the user interface, highlighting the key problems (and why it matters) along with their solutions.
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1. Improving the Add Button with Barcode Scan Feature
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Problem​
Users thought they should be able to add games via the Collection Page, rather than just the Search Page. Their mental models didn't align with the current design. There was also space to improve the speed of adding games to your collection as well.
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Solution
I expanded the "Add Modal" to the Collection Page to include a Barcode Scan feature, utilizing the device's camera to quickly identity and input a new board game either into to their collection or their wishlist, while still keeping "Add Game via Search" an option.
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2. Reworking the Buttons on the Collection Page
Problem​
There was confusion around the set of buttons at the top. Some were confused about the color patterns (orange = external, blue = internal), while others wondered about what each icon meant.
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Solution
I reworked the color scheme to be simplified with equal weight across the board. I added labels to each button to clarify its action and reduced the option for more space. I also created a tab system where users could flip between their actual collection & their wishlist easily.
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3. Elevating the Search Page
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Problem​
The Search page was the least interesting section according to all of my research participants, although them seeing a practical need for this page. As this was the intended landing page in the app, this needed a visual hook to draw users into the app experience.
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Solution
Following a suggestion from one user, I condensed the quick search categories to create some real estate for a banner - which could help with monetization opportunities, while informing users of new products of interest.
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07.
SHOWCASE
08.
REFLECT
Improvements
One of the things I noted to my mentor from the start was that I would have loved to interview more female board gamers to diversify the voices in this project. My feedback was from a predominately male pool of participants, in an already male-dominated industry of board games. Due to the turnaround, I was unable to located female voices in the hobby, but in future iterations, I would like to seek out a balance of opinions.
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Takeaways
I learned so much about prototyping in this project, specifically all the interactions and screens necessary to create various adjustments and permutations to have the model behave as real as possible for users to test.
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This was a personal project - Game Collective is a fictional brand.
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