Who is this for?
Fanatical, a gaming website that sells discounted keys for games to redeem on other platforms such as steam
What are we looking for?
Learn how we can improve the Mystery Game Bundle Page to increase user interest and sales
What do we think we know?
In the past we have found that gamers like to be informed when purchasing games. Here I hypothesize that users want more information on what games they have the chance of getting
How do I find out?
Start with a Usability Test on the page with included questions about behavior. Use these interviews to inform a survey which will supplement the qualitative findings. This strengthens the findings with both qualitative and quantitative data to make more informed decisions.
What did I actually find?
Contrary to the hypothesis, the users actually wanted less information. When it comes to Mystery games, this is a subset of gamers. They don’t need all of the reviews to make a decision since it is being made for them. All they want is a cheap way to try new things. The hypothesis was disproved.
What did I take away from this?
You really need to dig deep into the group of users you are targeting. In this instance, simply recruiting gamers would not have worked since we have found in the past that they are risk averse, checking ratings and reviews before purchasing a game. I needed to target people who liked the thought of finding something unexpected, and make sure we did the best we could for that group.
How did I impact the product?
At the time of this writing the findings are still being implemented into updated designs
Who is this for?
Fandom is a wiki hosting platform for all topics related to Gaming, TV, and Movies. In this project specifically I worked with the Fandom App team
What are we looking for?
For this project I was looking at the Fandom Mobile app which is a microcosm of all the Fandom wikis. This allows users to get information about their favorite fandoms on the go. A fandom is the community of fans around a particular topic, in this case we used Marvel as the example.
What do we think we know?
The designers were looking to add areas to the app which would compile everything for a specific fandom in one place. They thought that this would make it easier for fans to find engaging content and make it easier to participate in their communities.
How do we find out?
We conducted an A/B Usability test using both iterations of the new fandom page mockups. For recruitment we looked at users who had both used and not used the Fandom app. In this project I worked with another researcher and we swapped who led usability tests and who took notes. Together we analyzed the data from our tests and reported on it.
What did we actually find?
Users preferred Option 2 which defaulted to a home tab with more personalized utility and wiki content as this app ultimately is for a wiki site. Initially, participants expected to be taken directly to the wiki rather than discussions (Labeled as Home on mockup option 1).
What did I take away from this?
This particular project posed several major challenges when it came to recruiting. There was no way to recruit through the app to ensure that we could get experienced users so we looked to the main Fandom website to recruit. This also proved challenging since the usage of the Fandom app is much lower than use of Fandom on mobile and desktop web. Through trial and error and focused screeners we were eventually able to recruit the needed amount of experienced users.
How did we impact the product?
This research improved usability and accessibility in the Fandom app for users who had used it previously and those who didn’t. It also provided a place for people to track their fandoms and be able to engage with them more quickly and effectively.
Who is this for?
Tales of Xadia, a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) based on the Cortex Prime system.
What are we looking for?
Tales of Xadia was creating digital character sheets to help players run the game smoother and easier. For this project a fellow researcher and I were asked to investigate how players play the game based on the Netflix series, The Dragon Prince.
What do we think we know?
The social aspect of the game provides a tangible effect to learning the tools that we couldn’t capture outside of real play.
How do I find out?
In order to answer these questions I had to reach out of my comfort zone to use a technique I had not utilized yet, ethnography. Ethnography is simply observing users in their “natural habitat” without any intervention by the researcher. Afterwards we gave each participant a short survey about their experience. To be able to get all of their screens as well as their live reactions to the game, I combined OBS Studio, a free tool for streaming, and OBS Ninja, a free tool for OBS which allowed me to capture the users’ screens. This setup is shown in the example picture. We had two designated groups of participants who have never played the game before, people who have experience with digital player tools from other TTRPGs, and people who were only familiar with the Dragon Prince ip.
What did we actually find?
The social aspect of the game did allow for newer players to pick up on how to use the tools. Even when combining less experienced players together each person brought different understandings to the table and they were able to help each other out in different areas. The checklist nature of picking the dice to roll made it easy for players to quickly pick up the game and be able to start enjoying themselves. That being said, the tools themselves were not actually helping to teach the players. The primary mode of learning was social through both the players and the Narrator, basically the person who runs the game.
What did I take away from this?
For this project I had to adapt to new techniques for user research that I had not previously used. It was extremely insightful to just watch these players play the game and use the tools without need for a researcher to intervene to ask questions. They would ask questions when confused and help each other learn. That adaptability is key to my strategy for user research.
How did I impact the product?
The designers were able to take the insights gathered and update the methods they used to teach people the tools without relying completely on the person trying to run the game. This leaves them able to focus more on creating exciting stories and memorable play experiences for their friends.
Who is this for?
Fandom is a wiki hosting platform for all topics related to Gaming, TV, and Movies
What are we looking for?
Fandom had recently created a new quiz feature for users to test their knowledge on their favorite fandoms while they were looking for information. It was believed that this would get users more engaged with the platform in an effort to show them more ads. Unfortunately, quizzes had a very low click through rate and I was tasked with finding out why.
What do we think we know?
We believed that the placement of the Quiz was causing the low click through rate and that different places on the page or more distinctive design would help direct users toward it.
How do I find out?
For this project I relied on a usability study to determine why people weren’t engaging with the feature.
What did I actually find?
Since Fandom has a lot of ads on the platform, users believe that anything sufficiently different from the page is an ad. This hurt the usage of quizzes because people were not clicking on them for fear they would be brought to another page and lose their place where they were reading. This combined with the fact most users were here to read about their fandoms, not participate in games, led to the low click through rate.
What did I take away from this?
When most things are ads, everything is an ad. By trying to monetize the site we unintentionally conditioned our users to ignore everything that wasn’t directly related to the page. While we need to monetize our product, doing it so heavily impacted the usability of the site.
How did I impact the product?
Focusing on making the quizzes appear more like the Fandom wiki site, combined with making the quizzes as close to the subject matter of the page ensure that users were more likely to associate the quiz with Fandom rather than an ad. This has allowed an increase of clickthroughs for the feature.
Who is this for?
Fandom is a wiki hosting platform for all topics related to Gaming, TV, and Movies
What are we looking for?
For this project I was tasked with surveying our user community on their acceptance and usage of the Fandom global navigation. Fandom has two types of navigation, local (which navigates within a specific wiki) and global (which can navigate across all Fandom wikis).
What do we think we know?
The intention for this form of navigation was to get users interested in other fandoms within the site.
How do I find out?
I surveyed six thousand users across multiple usage levels who use Fandom. I asked them about various aspects of the global navigation to get a detailed understanding of how and when they use it.
What did I actually find?
Users don’t tend to use this form of navigation to traverse the site. Most find that it doesn’t provide the utility that even a simple Google search can accomplish for them. They would be open to personalized recommendations for fandoms to visit as well as a place to save the fandoms they already frequent. But as it currently stands the global nav seems out of place on most fandoms who have curated their look to match their ip.
What did I take away from this?
We tried to force the users to interact with the site on our terms before looking at how they interact with the site. If I were to redo this entire feature I would start with how the users want to traverse the site.
How did I impact the company?
This lead to conversations about how we generate revenue at Fandom and potentially moving from an ad impression per page to multiple impressions per page to meet users at how they want to interact with our site
