User Experience/User Interface (UX/UI)
Great UX acts as a conduit of how players engage with game design, narrative and art while driving user behavior to hit the business goals of the game studio. We provide services to fit whether the need is at the discovery stage or design stage. Our team is made up of UX professionals who are skilled experts in user research, player journeys, wire framing, prototyping, UI toolkits and design systems.
How it Works
The creative process can sometimes be a puzzle of moving pieces and missed targets. As gamers, we love a good challenge but, as UX designers, we like to utilize a comprehensive and industry-standard design process called the Double Diamond framework. Let's call it a cheat code for designers. :) The Double Diamond has four stages: Discover, Define, Design, and Deliver.
Discover
To gather information around the problem or opportunity, we first have to see it from all sides and start wide. Our UX team can conduct user interviews, brainstorming workshops, and usability studies to gather all data in order to make an informed decision. Before we jump to conclusions, we want to fully understand the player's motivations, behaviors, and pain points, and most importantly, stakeholder goals.
Define
We now have lots of data and we need to filter out the noise. The UX research will be distilled into an insights report and recommended next steps. This is a critical inflection point that will add context for the game design document (GDD). At the 'Define' stage, our team will work with stakeholders to build alignment on what the most viable and cost-efficient approach to a design solution. We will lead stakeholders through design thinking workshops to create personas, player journeys, and content architecture maps.
Design
At the Design stage, we have a clear design brief of what the opportunity is and who it's for. Now we roll up our sleeves and defining the how. How will the player interact with the new game mechanic or navigation? How will they perceive this new concept? Our team will flesh out various UX concepts via lo-fidelity wireframes and prototyping. If the design requires validation, we will interview players and conduct prototype testing. Once UX is signed off, we will work with internal partners in art to deliver UI art screens that are on-brand with the game's style. The UX team will work cross-functionally with art, product, game design, production and engineering to make sure we are delivering on the project timeline.
Deliver
Once design assets have been defined and approved, how do we ensure a proper handoff to the development team? How do we make sure we maintain consistency and best practices in the future? Our team will deliver a comprehensive design system built in an UX industry standard platform, Figma. Within Figma, a component library will contain all assets and guides to help the UI in your game to scale cost-effectively. A shared UI toolkit will build better UI collaboration between designers, engineers, and product managers.