Player
Share
Project Overview
Timeline
3 Weeks
Platform
Responsive Web (Desktop, tablet, and mobile views)
MY ROLE:
UX/UI Designer
Team:
Anthony Conta, Biana Gorelik, and Nicole Song
THE Problem:
PlayerShare is gearing up for their beta release and wants to validate their preliminary designs through usability testing and further user research. In order to release their minimum viable product (MVP), users need to be able to create an account and purchase/sell shares on the platform.
Goals:
Test usability of initial PlayerShare platform.
Establish account creation process
Create user dashboard
Redesign trading marketplace
Create process for buying and selling shares
Discover
What is PlayerShare?
PlayerShare is a decentralized peer-to-peer fantasy sports platform fueled by cryptocurrency (Ethereum to be precise) where users can trade shares of eSports athletes.
Huh?!?!?!? *insert intense brow furrowing and head scratch* That was my reaction too! I had to learn about these subjects to figure out what all of that meant.
Topic Research
Our team researched the 5 major topics the PlayerShare platform touches upon to understand what we’re building and the core user base.
eSports: Electronic sports/ competitive professional video gaming. Popular games include League of Legends (LoL) and Overwatch.
Fantasy Sports: An online game where users put together virtual teams of professional athletes from a single sport to compete against others based on statistics.
Finance: We familiarized ourselves with stock market trading, the buy/sell process, components of the marketplace, and portfolios.
Cryptocurrency: An alternative and digital currency that has decentralized control (not part of the Federal Reserve System or under government control).
Blockchain: A secure list of growing records linked together and kept track of openly by a community. Cryptocurrency transactions are recorded using blockchain.
Let’s Try again… What is PlayerShare?
The PlayerShare platform is like a stock market where you can invest in the career of your favorite video game playing athlete. You may purchase these shares securely using cryptocurrency. When your favorite athlete wins big at a tournament, you receive a bonus dividend! Woohoo!
User Interviews
Our team sent out a screener survey to find target users who participate in fantasy sports leagues, play eSports, and own/trade cryptocurrency. Participants for user interviews were chosen if they participate in at least two of the three activities.
The 14 interview participants were asked about their familiarity and experience with the three topics. Afterwards we did some usability testing on PlayerShare’s initial screens to find out what worked and what didn’t.
Insights gathered from user interviews
Esports:
People not only follow eSports players based on performance/game strategy, but also their personality.
There is no central website for eSports news. Users must go through multiple channels to stay up-to-date on players.
Community is a core aspect of watching and participating in eSports.
Fantasy Sports:
The primary motivator for participating is social.
Users enjoy bragging rights and the feel of being rewarded based on knowledge.
Users have different attachment levels to players the longer a fantasy season runs. Daily fantasy sports are “math problems” while longer leagues are “feel” based.
Cryptocurrency:
For users that have used cryptocurrency before, they do not have any concerns.
For users who are not familiar with cryptocurrency do not trust it.
Preliminary Platform Overview
What Worked
Concept (Macro level) - Excited to play
“How are shares established, and how many shares are there?”
What Didn’t Work
Details (Micro level) - Challenging to understand & Need context to play
“It looks like an asset exchange, where it's listing different things you could potentially buy at their price, and the change in real time.”
Define
Persona
Having a persona helps our team understand exactly who we are designing for. Our team formed a primary persona based on the insights we uncovered after synthesizing our user interviews.
User Journey
Our team created a user journey to visualize Matt’s current experience on the platform. This is used to evaluate areas that can be improved by our design.
Design
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Our mid fidelity wireframes focused on designing the account creation process and making a user dashboard. Both of these are primary needs of the platform. Matt (our persona) would not be able use PlayerShare without these components. For this iteration we also attempted to redesign the marketplace to incorporate buying and selling.
User Flows
We created user flows to visualize the paths users can take while using the platform. While creating user flows, we were able to find paths and screens that were unaccounted for and still need to be designed.
SiteMap
Our team made a sitemap to understand the structure of the platform and the relationship between pages.
Usability Testing & Iterations
Our team performed 11 usability test throughout the project and used the insights gathered to improve upon each of our 3 prototypes. Our usability testing focused on 4 areas of the platform (creating an account, user dashboard, the marketplace, and buying/selling).
Create an Account
The biggest hurdle we faced with the account creation page was explaining the external integrations required to use the platform, why it was needed, and why users should trust it. We did not want to overwhelm users with too many steps and too much information during the sign up process, but from our usability tests, we found that it was necessary. If users didn’t trust or understand these integrations, they will not sign up. We made sure to provide clear explanations in our final iteration.
User Dashboard
The dashboard was created as a home for users. The space was used to track their portfolio, watchlist, trade history, and additional winnings (Dividends, GG Score, and Achievements).
Dividends: Users receive bonuses when players they invest in perform well and win tournaments.
GG Score: A social component built in for friendly competition and engagement among users.
Achievements: A way to earn badges for completing certain tasks.
Marketplace
Our team started by iterating on PlayerShare’s original design for the marketplace. We added player statistics and the buy/sell function so users and quickly buy and sell as they watch the market fluctuate. However, users were overwhelmed by the amount of information on the page and it would not be practical on a mobile screen. We removed the buy/sell function on this page so users can focus on analysing the information on the market page.
Buy/Sell
Our original design had the buy/ sell function within the dashboard and the marketplace. Users found both to be confusing and overwhelming due to the amount of information already on the page. After further testing, we learned that users want to focus and make informed decisions about players one at a time. This is why we created individual player pages and included the buy/ sell function there.
Deliver
High Fidelity Wireframes
Mobile and Tablet views
It was important for us to design a responsive website because PlayerShare envisions users checking on their portfolio and trading on the go. This is especially geared towards live events such as the League of Legends World Championships.
Next Steps
For PlayerShare.GG’s MVP to launch there need to be a few more things that need to be designed and tested. Initial player offering is the biggest item that needs to be tackled. How will shares be sold when a new player comes onto the market? Will there be a special event? How will share prices be determined? How many shares will be offered?
The potential for social engagement excited me most about working on PlayerShare’s platform. The target users for PlayerShare (eSports fans and gamers) enjoy the social aspects of gaming (connecting and competing with others). For this platform to be successful there needs to be more ways for users to engage with one another and build community.
What I Learned
Don’t forget about Gestalt Principles! Grouping and proximity are important for intuitive user experience. From usability tests, our users had a hard time with the tools in their dashboard because related items were not placed together. (Check changes between Dashboard version 2 and 3.) Switching the placement of Activity and Achievements was simple, but made a big difference in terms of usability.
More about PlayerShare can be found here: http://playershare.gg/