of users completed
the usability test
Gaduro Board Game Recommender App
Get a curated list of board games that’s perfect for any occasion and any number of players!
Overview
Globally, board games are making a huge comeback since the pandemic, fueled with people’s desire to connect and play different board games.
Although board games have been making a comeback, the interest is still limited to a small number of people. Coupled with the difficulty in gathering players, deciding what board games to play, has led to missed opportunities for board game lovers.
Project Type
End-to-end
App Design
App Design
Duration
4 Weeks
Role
Sole Designer, User Research, UX Design, Visual Design, Branding, Prototyping
Scenario
Imagine you have guests over and are struggling to agree on which game to play for your game night, despite spending an hour discussing it.
But First.. Let's do Research
While I had encountered the issues first hand, I needed to deepen my understanding and discover how prevalent the issue was to others. I decided to conduct user research to gain more context. My three goals were to:
1. Understand why users want to play board games
2. Understand what a board game night looks like
3. Determine the users' likes and frustrations with the current state of board games
Through user interviews, I found that participants struggled with deciding what board games to play. Especially when playing with big groups with people’s different board game preferences, it took really long for the group to end up deciding what board game to play. Participants also expressed that they tend to do extensive research on board games before they decide to buy it.
"There was a time we had 12 people and it was so chaotic deciding what board game we wanted to play. Plus there aren't that many board games available for 12 players."
"We try to keep the group relatively small like around 4 - 5 players since most of the board games are optimized for that many players."
"I usually get introduced to new board games when I play with my friends. I'll buy it if I end up really like it."
"I do a good amount of research before I buy a board game. I read a lot of reviews and look at play throughs to see if I'll end up enjoying it."
Competitor Analysis
With a better understanding of the problem space around board games, I began to look and compare what competitors were doing.
Board games being a niche activity & industry, I initially struggled with finding competitors. I looked to MeetUps and Reddit since those two are the main group/resource finding platform. I personally use BoardGameGeek when I research new board games and believe that it has huge community support. The last competitor I looked at was Game Tree, this was something I had to really go into the deep and find. It’s a platform catered to connect people online with similar interests. Their current user base is centered around video games, but they have board game users as well.
Board games being a niche activity & industry, I initially struggled with finding competitors. I looked to MeetUps and Reddit since those two are the main group/resource finding platform. I personally use BoardGameGeek when I research new board games and believe that it has huge community support. The last competitor I looked at was Game Tree, this was something I had to really go into the deep and find. It’s a platform catered to connect people online with similar interests. Their current user base is centered around video games, but they have board game users as well.
Overview Summary
- Users are able to find and join local communities based on their hobbies, passions, and interests
- Limited user base due to the fact of minimal advertising and marketing, along with the information architecture of these platforms being weak
- The market for adult to connect and meet with each other has only been growing
- With reviews being one of the most important factors when people research a product, smaller branded products can get snuffed out with bad reviews
Synthesizing my Research Findings
Creating User Personas
With my head fresh with insights from user interviews, I went on to create personas that represent my users. Each of the persona corresponds to a different player type. By splitting up the different users, it allowed me to get a better understanding of what type of users I should be focusing on when creating the initial MVP.
Primary Persona: Meet Rachel, our regular board game player.
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Taking the insights from the interview findings and research, I was able to determine the user needs. In order to craft some solutions, I also thought out HMW statements through the lens of my persona.
Problem Statement
How might we recommend board games to players so that they will have an easier time deciding what board games to play?
From Ideas to Wireframes
Ideate and Prioritize Solutions
With my user persona and problem statement in mind, I created a product roadmap to better prioritized what features needed to be in the MVP and what could come later.
It was important for me to establish the appmap for this app. Since this is a new app, I needed to think about how the organization of the app, information hierarchy and the app’s content will solve the problem. Creating the appmap allowed me to have a good overview of the app’s layout and how all the content will fit together to better solve the problem.
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Thinking about the problem statement and the idea to recommend board games to users grew more complex as I thought about it. I ran through many ideas such as what ways could users find board games or get recommended board games. Should they see a list of random board games or should they select different categories for board games? I ultimately decided upon the following user flow with initial sketches for three key low-fidelity wireframes – Home page, board game page and a board game profile page.
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Capturing the Look and Feel
Before turning the wireframes into actual screens, I needed to create an identity for the brand. I created a UI kit for Gaduro including logo design, the typeface, and color scheme. I created a few playful color palette and made a mini survey to see what participants liked the most for the app.
High Fidelity Wireframes
With the UI kit in place, we can finally bring the app to life.
Determining Effectiveness
Once I had finished the high-fidelity wireframes and created a prototype, it was time to put my designs to the test. I looked to do usability test with two main objectives:
- Determine if users can navigate and find board games
- Discover any issues with the flow and experience of the app
100%
88%
of users felt the
app was intuitive
app was intuitive
90%
of users felt satisfied
with the app
with the app
100%
of users would recommend
this app to others
this app to others
Impact-effort Prioritization Matrix
With the insights and results from the usability test, I created an impact-effort prioritization matrix to figure out my next steps for the project.
Iterations 1 – Adding Newest Board Games on Home Page
During the usability test, I discovered that users wanted to see some sort of board games on the home page. To make finding board games more accessible for users, I added “Newest Board Games” to the home page.
Iteration 2 – Improve the Clarity of the CTA on the For You Board Games Page
I found that users tend to click on the top button when viewing the page. They explained that the color and the verbiage of the buttons made them choose Get recommendation by Genre rather than Get started. To resolve this, I updated the verbiage to both have Get Recommendations and change the color priority of the buttons.
Iterations 3 – Getting New Board Game Recommendations
I asked users what they expected to happen if they got recommendations and went to the feature again. They expressed that they wanted to see the recommended list again and wanted a button to get new recommendations.
So I created and added a reroll icon that users can press and get new recommendations. To make sure users were familiar with the icon, I added in a tooltip that explains the purpose of it.
So I created and added a reroll icon that users can press and get new recommendations. To make sure users were familiar with the icon, I added in a tooltip that explains the purpose of it.
Final Thoughts & Next Steps
This project grew more complex the further along I got into it. The idea had started off simple enough but as I got deeper into research, I found that many people actually enjoy board games and had different experiences and insights. From the initial results of the user testing, the project resulted in a huge success with a 90% satisfaction score and 100% net promoter score.
While this was great, I found that the board game industry was still growing and had many opportunity areas. I envisioned Gaduro to be an app where board game lovers would be able to meet and connect with other people in their local communities to play board games. On top of finding board games to play or find new board games.
While this was a concept project, if I had the opportunity to bring this app to life, my next steps in this project would be to set up another round of user testing to see how the iterations turned out. Followed by flushing out the rest of the iteration based on a priority matrix and develop the community & events pages. If this was a real project, I'd look for the new user onboarded and the number of active users.
While this was great, I found that the board game industry was still growing and had many opportunity areas. I envisioned Gaduro to be an app where board game lovers would be able to meet and connect with other people in their local communities to play board games. On top of finding board games to play or find new board games.
While this was a concept project, if I had the opportunity to bring this app to life, my next steps in this project would be to set up another round of user testing to see how the iterations turned out. Followed by flushing out the rest of the iteration based on a priority matrix and develop the community & events pages. If this was a real project, I'd look for the new user onboarded and the number of active users.
