I approached this design proposal by identifying and analyzing our target player, design goal, and challenges through user research report, which happened to be insufficient due to its small sample size. In order to counterbalance the lack of user insights, I probed into user-generated content posted by players on various social media platforms to examine how users are currently interacting with the luck spin system and how they feel about their experiences.
Along the process of requirement analysis, I also reviewed the current user flow of opening lucky spins. Due to the reward randomization algorithm, a user needs to open at least 14 rounds in order to complete the entire collection. In each round, they will have to click through one to three animated pop-up screens, which constitute 10 to 20 minutes of repetitive clicks through resembling screens.
Obviously, the problem would aggravated if we were to add those new pop-up screens, as they generate excessive user costs in the already tedious interaction process.
I soon realized how obscure the design goal was, and how following such a proposal will not only sacrifice user experience but also fail to create additional values. Therefore, I invited the game designer to a more comprehensive discussion by asking open-ended questions such as “What do we want the users to feel about this new feature?” and “What will they say if they were to share their new lucky spin experience on social media?” At the end of the conversation, we both gained a clearer idea of what goals and metrics we wanted this design to achieve.
My general approach to the design and ideation was re-visiting the current user flow while brainstorming how we might achieve our goals by optimizing the current experience.
Surprisingly, the game designer continued to insist on adding new pop-up screens when I proposed my ideas and solutions along with my analysis. As I reflected on our conversation, I realized that they did so because they did not perceive the additional screens as negative influences on user experience, and because they thought that I was biased.
Therefore, I presented our challenges to other team members, collected their feedback, and revisited the game designer with these insights as validation of my proposals. Fortunately, one of the developers happened to be our target user, who seeks to complete every single skin collection, and their feedback helped establish even more credibility. In the end, I was able to persuade the game designer to adopt my ideas by finding allies on the team.