GamerFinder: Connect with the perfect teammates
By: Angel Huang
Tags: UX Design, User Experience Design, Mobile Apps, UX, User Experience

Photo by Lucie Liz from Pexels

As an avid video gamer who enjoys multiplayer games, it is incredibly frustrating when I can’t find people to play with. Even worse, there are times when people just end up ruining my fun. I knew this sentiment was shared by many other gamers, so I wanted to design an app that would offer them an easy way to find like-minded teammates who are more likely to provide a positive gaming experience.

Figuring out the main issues

The first step was conducting user interviews to learn more about the player search experience. I recruited eight participants who play multiplayer video games regularly and asked them about how they find teammates, what they look for in a teammate, and where the pain points are in the process. Here are the primary problems I discovered from the interviews:

Most people find the player search journey difficult because playing with strangers is an inconsistent experience

People have their own preferences in terms of what kind of teammates they prefer so they want to find other players that fit their predetermined criteria

There are a few apps/platforms like Discord and Reddit that can be used for finding other players and interacting with the gaming community, but it takes a lot of research and time

Mapping the user journey

With an understanding of users’ player search process from the interviews, I was able to create a user journey map that details what the users think, feel, during each phase of the process. From there I pinpointed the opportunities for improvement

Mapping each step of the player search process from the user’s perspective

Learning from Others

It became clear that to solve the user problems, my app would have to allow users to connect with players that match their preferences. So I began looking into other apps that serve a similar function to search pages/functions that would be useful for my app.

GameTree (app for gamers to discover friends, games, news, and more)

Discord (desktop & mobile app designed for people to communicate and create communities)

Coffee Meets Bagel (app for dating and social networking)

Kippo (dating app for gamers)

From the competitive analysis, I identified a few common themes that I would emulate in my app.

A step for users to create a profile where they indicate personal attributes

A step for users to indicate search criteria/preference

A page that shows the suggested results based on search criteria

The ability for users to connect with and chat with each other

Applying What I Learned

From the competitive analysis, I got a general idea of what steps users would have to take and what core tasks should be included to achieve the goal of finding other players. I then put together a flowchart to illustrate that process.

The Brainstorm

Next, it was time to ideate pages for my own app. I focused on three core pages and came up with three variations of each. It was an exercise to think critically about what features should be present for users to get to the goal. Below are sample sketches of each page.

profile creation page

player preference page for users to indicate specific search criteria

results page to show a list of suggested players that fit the user’s indicated preference

Decisions Decisions…

After receiving feedback on the various sketches, it was clear that there were elements in all the versions that were worth including in the app. With that in mind, I moved forward to wireframing the key pages on Figma, and added some additional pages to complete the flow of the app. Here is the result.

The profile creation pages

The player preference, search results, to connect to player screens

The main pages of the app including “Home”, “Discover”, “Chat” and “Profile Settings”

Putting it to the Test

After prototyping the pages, it was time to run everything by potential users. The five participants who tested this first iteration all played multiplayer video games and represented the target audience for my app. The purpose was to assess whether they can solve the problem of finding liked-minded players with the app, how they interact with the pages, as well as opportunities for improvement.

Based on the testing observations, the participants found that they were able to achieve the goal of finding other players that fit a certain criteria. The insights from the usability test also illuminated several areas of improvement:

Some fields like “game mode” and “rank/level” were not relevant/do not apply for certain games, and participants expected the fields to be customized based on the game

The player preference step was seen as redundant because participants wanted to search for players that are similar to them, and this information was already filled out in their profile

Participants expected to have to send a request to connect first before they can send a message

They also appreciated the “looking for game sessions” functionality in the Discover page

Based on the takeaways above, I made the following revisions on the next iteration in addition ironing out some smaller kinks:

Updated UI of the game fields so that it’s more obvious that they are customized depending on the games users play

Removed the player preference page so that users can see the search results immediately after creating a profile and added the option to filter results

Updated the connect to player step so that users see a “request sent” message after they click “connect”

Made “looking for game sessions” button also available on the home page to bring more attention to it

And…Voila!

Reflection

It has been a fruitful journey of creating my first app and seeing my idea come to life. I believe that with a bigger team, more testing and refinement, GamerFinder can become the go-to app that solves the problem experienced by many gamers. It’s also a problem that is especially relevant in the current pandemic as more people are playing video games as their at-home entertainment.