Press Start

Overview		Challenge		Role
This app prototype revolves around providing new gamers with game recommendations as we saw it was a pain point for new gamers to find games with an overwhelming amount of choices. We created this prototype as a part of Adobe’s Creative Jam with Activision, which made it to the final selection of judging.		Gaming has been a popular pastime for many people and with the abundant amount of games, it can provide an overwhelming amount of choices to new gamers. With this in mind, how might we inform new gamers through an app?		My role for this project was leading the overall visual design and UI of the app, in addition to working with two other team members on the UX. There were just 48 hours to complete and submit the prototype, to be judged.

Us versus the world

In this hackathon (College + Activision/Adobe Creative Jam), I teamed up with two of my friends against a whole ton of universities in the US, UK and Canada. The main theme is gaming, and we had the dauntless task of creating an app that caters to/informs new gamers. Our main concept was to create an app that provides recommendations to the user, in a easy and simple way. We took inspiration from Steam and other platforms (i.e. uPlay, Orgin, and Epic) and found a central theme: They were all overwhelming with games, especially for a new gamer. This can deter a new gamer due to too many choices and provide a high level of frustration.

We decided to focus on three main things for our app:



Usability, making it intuitive to the user		Simplicity, simple navigation and UI		Information, showing only the necessary info

Our goal was to provide an institutive UI where the user can easily navigate and easily find information (or recommendations in this case) within the app, without frustration.

The plan

With just 48 hours, we spent quite a bit of time talking about ideas and how we can execute them. I took the time to do a bit of research and taking a step back to view the overall picture of a new gamer, which aided us greatly. I investigated forums like Reddit and social media as I saw a trend where people would ask for suggestions for games for their kid, parents, or what to play. I also briefly looked into other platforms such as Steam and Orgin, to understand how they were recommending games.

We started doing wireframes to start the process and then refined it further as we had a good design in mind. I took lead in the overall design and layout, I used a pastel purple colour for it to be inviting, casual, and safe. The concept was revolved around providing an intuitive and simple experience for the player, without overwhelming them with information.

Wireframes! Oh so many of them!

The final product

Our solution was a simple and easy way of recommending a new player games based on their criteria. An onboarding process was made to ease in the user to the app and to tailor their preferences. The UI is centered around cards and minimalism, which results in a focus on the game and information shown. I also took the concept of “familiarity” like what game UI does by using familiar elements in other games to provide familiarity to the player. I applied this here with making it feel very “iOS like”, so the layout and type are familiar, so it creates less load on the mind and easy to follow.

The user can swipe left and right to show different recommendations, which makes it easy for the user to look for games and see the actual game. We selected cards as a form of UI because it was easy to show information and clean. We didn’t want to overload the user with multiple titles but rather one title at a time, until the user likes a recommended game.

We also added other elements like social media, sharing, wish lists, and favourites – Which enhances the experience further. The idea is to connect this to major platforms like PSN, Xbox Live, and My Nintendo, so it players can share their wishlists, games, and whatnots to different consoles.

In the end, we wanted to reduce the frustration of finding games. Our secondary research showed that people often ask for recommendations online via social hubs like Reddit, Facebook, or Twitter. It shows that the abundance of games out there is quite large and is daunting to a new gamer today. I felt that we accomplished this by creating an app that is focused on doing one thing good, recommending quality games based on the user’s needs/preferences.

Working prototype link

The takeaways

In this hackathon, the theme was challenging, and it was tough because we were competing against so many schools. We weren’t sure if our idea was going to work realistically but instead of worrying about that, we focused on what we believed, and I feel that we successfully did that. What I learned through this was:

Onboarding is key

During judging, one of the key points of feedback that they had was onboarding. I learned that our onboarding was a bit too long and could be shortened so that the user is able to get into the app quicker. I realized that this applies to any kind of experience such as games where tutorials are important but shouldn’t be too long to deter the experience. By minimizing the onboarding tasks, the user can quickly get into the app and not get bored by multiple screens just to setup the app.

Focus on one aspect

I learned that having a focus is important and provides a direction when creating the prototype. Initially, we had a lot of ideas to implement but decided to focus on one thing and do it well. I think that this is a major factor to what makes an app or product successful, doing one thing and one thing well.

Working remotely with others kind of sucks

This was the first time I did a hackathon online and it was a bit challenging due to it being remote. Although, one positive thing was that we could do it in our own home but I miss the interaction and working with others physically. Something about working in-person makes things feel more efficient and better.