Overview
Our product team, in collaboration with 3rd party game developer Floating Point FX team, strategized and executed a fun modern mobile gaming experience within a familiar kart-racing genre as a way for the young (at heart) to enjoy interacting with the Great Wolf Kids characters while simultaneously "driving" ancillary revenue via in-game premium purchases, level progression and contest incentives.
The Team
Interactive Designer (Me), Product Manager, Project Manager, Game Developers, Concept Artist
My Responsibilities
UX/UI Design, Wireframes, Prototypes, High Fidelity Mockups, User Testing, In-game HUD Design, 2D Graphic Production, 3rd Party Game Developer Liaison, Art Direction, Logo Design, Marketing Creative
Primary Tools
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Acrobat, Paper/Sketches
User Personas
Early stage project planning consisted of user persona creation and define a variety of use cases that will effect how we would determine MVP, must-have features and design approach.
A few examples of target audience and feature set:
• Boys and Girls Ages 6-12
• Playing on iPad or iPhone at home or on the go
• Families with multiple devices for multiplayer option
• Requires simplified navigation
• Flexible control schemes
• In-game premium content purchases
• Free Stay Giveaway Contest Incentive
• Playing on iPad or iPhone at home or on the go
• Families with multiple devices for multiplayer option
• Requires simplified navigation
• Flexible control schemes
• In-game premium content purchases
• Free Stay Giveaway Contest Incentive
User flows and wireframes
The Great Wolf Wild Racing game offers a variety of options for the user to select from including single player, multiplayer, quick race, cup race series, and several car/character selection options in a garage view. Each of these gameplay options were mapped out to spec by the project manager. As the Interactive Designer, I used these as a basis for designing out all the necessary designs and prototypes.
Low fidelity prototypes
Once the team agreed we had accounted for every option and feature desired within the user flows and basic wireframes, it was time to move on to the mid-fidelity wireframes and prototypes. While we wanted to avoided being too refined at this stage, I was tasked to start defining a bit of style, character, and voice of the game. This is when I started adding pre-drawn character artwork and environmental concept sketches.
User Testing
Early low-fidelity and mid-fidelity design testing was performed with colleagues, families and friends with varying levels of game playing familiarity through high level tasks and goals for validation. We determined testing with young children at this stage would not be ideal for gaining desired qualitative data.
Once our high-fidelity designs and dev builds were ready, we started testing basic tasks with our target audience. We had the young kids (coworker family members) come to our office to play the game. We had various tasks and observation checklists prepared for the team of observers.
Examples of high level success factors included:
• The ability to start the game, set it up and play
• The ability to easily get to, and make a purchasing decision
• The relative engagement of the app itself
• The ability to start the game, set it up and play
• The ability to easily get to, and make a purchasing decision
• The relative engagement of the app itself
High fidelity menu screen designs
Here is a look at few of the final high fidelity mockups and menu screens I refined for handoff to the 3rd party game developer. We tested the game with the dev builds based off of these mockups and prototypes. Other graphical design tasks I started included refining logos, icons, in-game art assets, and marketing materials.
In-race game screens
After providing the 3rd party game dev team with 2D HUD and remaining in-game art assets, we continued with more QA testing and a few more builds through release of the game to the iOS store.
Key Takeaways
User testing with young kids presented it’s own set of challenges beyond other forms of usability testing. Attention spans can be sporadic and was occasionally difficult with a few of the youngest users despite having a plan to mitigate these issues with a one-on-one child observation approach. It did help keep everyone focused on completing the tasks overall and obtain good qualitative feedback.
We had the kids free-play for 10 minutes post task completion to have more fun and alleviate any pressure they may have felt. Allowing the users to free-play first instead, may have provided different insight, as the testers may have been able to get over any nervousness, or perhaps get comfortable with the game prior to asking them to complete specific tasks at the same time as learning the interface and gameplay.
The business decision to add premium content downloads and provide the game as a free download may not have been as profitable as charging a lower one-time cost of the game, and give away all content in game for free based on progression and tasks completed.