LevelUP is an all-in-one high score tracking and navigation app designed to take the arcade experience to the next level. The app's personalized recommendations engine, activity and rewards tracking, and location-based games directory are designed to help gamers spend more time playing and less time searching.
Great UX is built by keeping the user front-and-center throughout the entire process. Before putting pen to paper (or, designs to screen) I began a comprehensive research and discovery process centered around answering two key questions: what does our potential userbase look like and what similar products exist on the market?
To get to the root of who are users are and what they need, I asked myself some additional questions:
What key characteristics can describe the arcade's playerbase?
How do arcade visitors typically go about finding new games to play?
What are some challenges players face when visiting the local arcade?
Who are some of the key competitors facing a local arcade?
How do other arcades use tech to enhance the player experience?
What do players typically look to get out of visiting the local arcade?
Name: Sanjit Singh (Age: 16)
Hometown: Malden, MA
Occupation: HS Student, Grocery Store Clerk
Sanjit is an HS student and occasional arcade patron who needs help deciding which games to play and where to find them, as the arcade’s wealth of options can be confusing and lead to wasting time on less-than-enjoyable games.
Name: Deidre Calistes (Age: 28)
Hometown: Victoria Gardens, CA
Occupation: Electrician
Deirdre is a competitive gamer with a love of arcades, who needs a way to track her high scores and see how they compare to others’ scores, because individually checking machines is time-consuming and inefficient..
Through user research and my competitive landscape audit, I identified the top pain points currently facing arcade patrons, and sought to build a digital experience that would address these frustrations:
Gamers want to spend less time looking for new games or getting caught up with games they don’t ultimately enjoy.
Currently, keeping track of high scores and games played would require players to check individual machines and/or keep a manual log.
Players want to be able to locate games suited to their preferences, whether they’re looking for PvP, big jackpots, or family-friendly options.
Paper prototypes helped bring the user flow to life. I created various drafts of each screen to consider how different layouts and elements would impact the overall experience, before settling on "final" layouts seen below. Crucially, more iteration on these designs took place in later stages, and some screens did not even make it to the final product.
I then translated these paper wireframes into low-fidelity prototypes using Figma, paying careful attention to visual consistency, density of information, and checkpoints to help users progress through the app.
Before drafting high-fidelity visuals, thereby committing to my initial designs, I wanted to ensure that my low-fidelity mockups were sufficiently helping address user goals and pain points. I scoped and ran a moderated usability test, observing a total of five users of different demographics complete a series of tasks using the low-fidelity prototype in Figma. This study sought to address a key question - is the LevelUP app truly helping users save time when searching for a game? - and generated the following insights:
First-time users are getting lost on the homepage
The game reviews feature is seen as cumbersome
Users desire more filtering options when browsing
Users are confused by search results as its own page
Building on lessons and learnings from my initial user research, various stages of iteration, and my usability study, I arrived at a final set of product mockups and an interactive prototype for LevelUP. Key screens are shown below.
Growing up, arcades were a popular vacation pastime for my family, one that continues to evoke feelings of nostalgia to this day. Every summer, we still visit Joe's Playland in Salisbury Beach. It has been exciting to watch how arcades have evolved to keep up with the times, as technology rapidly changes (and arguably expands) the gaming market.
I wanted to build LevelUP because I have visited various arcades that provide an exciting and - in some cases - very unique experience (specifically, live gaming or "questing) and I saw an opportunity for these facilities to make use of an app to help players have even more fun. We are inherently social and competitive creatures; the ability to conquer new challenges with others by our side appeals to people from all walks of life, and I hope that LevelUP can help users do this more efficiently.
From a process standpoint, designing this app helped me really understand the importance of thinking like the user, keeping their goals and challenges in mind during every step of the design process. Good UX is so much more than just an aesthetically-pleasing color scheme and set of visuals, and at its core, requires a perfect blend of design, research and analytics, outside-the-box-thinking, and - above all - empathy.