Board Gamers

Onboarding Companion App for Board Games

An app designed to teach players how to play a new board game and help experienced players improve their strategy.

Introduction

Learning how to play a new board game can sometimes be a confusing and frustrating experience depending on the complexity of the rules, the quality of the information, and who you are playing with.

Board Gamers is an app that aims to get new players started quickly and help experienced players learn about the nuances of the game to improve their strategy. It achieves this by effectively teaching players how to set-up and play through step-by-step instructions and providing experienced players with a variety of strategic tips they can use to perfect their game.

Why Board Games?

As a board gamer myself, when playing a new board game, I began to notice that it was taking a long time to set-up and ensure that everyone in the group was on the same page. I started to think about how the experience could be improved and how we could break down the process in ways that people could understand.

Understanding the Problem

The Current Experience

Manuals are wordy and learning is slow

Through user research, I discovered the following challenges that users have when learning how to play a new board game:

• Manuals are lengthy and there is too much reading.
• Complex rules are hard to understand.
• Cognitive overload from too much information.
• Friend’s explanations are unclear.
• Time-consuming to read the rules and play a practice round.

The Challenge

Teaching the rules effectively in an easy-to-understand manner before users get frustrated and give up.

Solving the Problem

Breaking down the information and bringing it into focus

Create an easy to use mobile companion app for board games that:

• Teaches the basics through succinct step-by-step instructions.
• Brings together board game learning resources together into one place.
• Offers information that caters to different player skills where more experienced players can use to improve their strategy.
• Gets players excited to play the game.

→ Click here to view the Prototype

Scope and Constraints

Short timeline, the need to design quickly

With the short timeline, the following constraints were used to help focus my design:

The Design Process

The Starting Point: Brainstorming & Assumptions

Before starting the research phase, casual conversations were had with board gamers to get a better understanding of their experiences and where they go to learn about new board games.

Assumptions were built from these initial conversations and will be validated through user research.

Brainstorming Session with Classmates for Ideas

Research: Understanding the Space & Users

Competitive Analysis: What resources are available to users?

I did a competitive analysis to help me identify what resources are available to board gamers and what opportunities are available in the market.

Looking at what resources board gamers turn to for information gave me an understanding of how they learn about the games.

Secondary Research: Board Gamer Motivations

I wanted to get a better understanding of board gamer motivations and discovered Quantic Foundry’s Board Game Motivation Model.

Understanding what motivates users to play board games helped me shape what features would fit into the user’s needs.

User Research: Understanding the User’s Motivations & Frustrations

To gain a better understanding of the user’s frustrations, motivations, and experiences, a survey was created to gather behavioural information and user interviews were conducted to gain qualitative insights.

Survey

To begin validating some of my assumptions, I conducted a quick user survey with board gamers.

I learned that having someone explain the rules is the top method to learn how to play.

When respondents were asked about their learning experience, the top frustration they encounter is when complicated rules are not explained clearly (34%) followed by having to play practice rounds to fully understand the rules (17%).

User Interviews

The responses from the survey helped me formulate interview questions.

I conducted interviews with 6 people who are avid board gamers that play 2+ times a month. I learned that the most preferred way of learning is learn-by-doing and that more experienced players seek out more information to improve their strategy to win.

Target Audience: Tech-savvy Millennials

From my research, I determined the target audience for Board Gamers would be:

• Millennials ages 35 – 44 years old with an average household income of >$100, 000.
• They play board games 2 – 3 times a month with their friends.
• They play board games online and also in-person with their friends.
• They enjoy the social aspect of playing board games and like to win.
• They like a broad range of board games from ones that are easy to learn to more complex ones.
• They are tech-savvy.

Persona & User Journey: Empathizing with the User

I built a persona and journey map that best embodies the research. This helped me empathize with the user and gave me a reference point when developing my solution.

Ideate with Goals and User’s Needs in Mind

A priority one feature set was narrowed down from the initial brainstorm and determined based on the synthesized persona and the user’s primary goal of learning how to play a board game.

Features

User Flow

A basic user task flow was created to help visualize the path the user will take and a detailed user flow was created.

→ Click here to see a detailed User Flow Diagram

Low Fidelity Explorations

Sketches

I began my design with wireframe sketches to ensure hierarchy and started to incorporate Material Design elements to see how they can be used with my features.

Wireframes

Wireframes were created and a prototype was put together to test for flow and app functionality.

Usability Testing: Fail Fast, Iterate Quick

Usability Testing

When there was an issue discovered, quick iterations were made and tested with the next participants.

Iteration #1: The FAB was confusing

Iteration #2: Users missed the How to Play tabs

After the updates, subsequent testers had no issues locating the Search and How to Play Buttons.

Visual Design

Informative, Interactive, and Modern

The app’s purpose is to teach and inform and the visual theme would be informative, interactive, and modern. The dark UI with the bright colours adds contrast and can help with making various visual and text elements stand out.

Nunito Sans was chosen for its legibility and versatility.

High Fidelity Mockups

Usability Testing Round 2: Measuring Success

A high-fidelity prototype was created from the mockups to conduct further testing measure:

Quick Iteration: Explaining the Discard Pile

Reflections & Takeaways

The Art of Silence

During interviews, I had to resist my urge to fill in the awkward silences. But with the silence, I found that instead of me filling in the gaps, the interviewee will often fill it with additional stories. This has helped me uncover more about their experiences.

Using Material Design

This was my first time using Material Design and there were some nuances I had to learn on how elevation is utilized.

Usability Testing during the Pandemic

Due to the pandemic, I had some issues with recruiting testers for my second round of usability testing. Testing was done with my inner circle. Additional testing can be conducted once it is safe to get more people together in a space.

Next Steps

There is an opportunity to dive deeper into the research and look into how groups can influence learning.

For future releases, there are opportunities to add social and community features and additional support to help board gamers reach their next level of play.