Research and design to validate feature desirability
of an eSports platform
For the final project of my bootcamp, I collaborated with a design team by leading the research phases to generate an authentic connection between eSports enthusiasts and the product.
Our work ensured a successful product launch, with key design decisions increasing the platform’s credibility to help our client secure over $300k in funding.
ROLE
Design Researcher
SCOPE OF WORK
Web App prototype
CLIENT
Kaikoo
TIMELINE
Aug ‘20 - Sep ‘20
About the project
Kaikoo is building an all-in-one desktop tool to help eSports coaches & gamers track performance to take their skills to the next level. They wanted to learn more about their users’ needs, prioritize features and make improvements to the existing platform.
In this project, I empathized with eSports enthusiasts, ensured alignment by facilitating stakeholder workshops, validated a set of features, tested the performance of the prototype we built and developed assets to handover to the client.
I collaborated closely with a product manager, a visual designer and kaikoo’s web developer.
What the client needs
Kaikoo is launching a platform to help eSports players and coaches who are frustrated with analyzing and tracking gameplay data. These users must utilize multiple software/tools to gain insights into their teams’ performance. This is time-consuming and distracts them from more important activities, like practicing or coaching a team.
Solving this problem will allow our client to grow their user base by becoming a recognized brand within the eSports community. It would also impact coaches and players positively because visualising data will be more efficient and it will help them improve the overall performance of the team.
What I did
The goal was to conduct generative research to gain a deeper understanding about the mental models that eSports users have and evaluative research to validate a set of features proposed by the client.
We began by having a conversation with our client to define the scope of the project, then analyzed the competition to implement best practices and recruited a total of 16 participants for interviews to discover their needs and wants when it comes to life as an eSports enthusiast. We also shadowed 3 users and ran a total of 12 experiments to learn how they use existing tools and be able to validate/invalidate features.
Stakeholder Interviews. Benchmarking. User Interviews. Contextual Inquiries. Usability testing.
What I asked
This project was special, I had zero knowledge about the eSports community and this fueled my curiosity. I created a question board to guide the research process and the conversations I had with users.
What challenges must be addressed so that users prefer kaikoo over competitors?
What behaviours and processes are involved in coaching an eSports team?
What’s important to create a great web app experience for eSports enthusiasts?
What gameplay data is important for a coach to visualise at a glance and why?
Who is this for?
Kaikoo serves 2 main user profiles and we reached out to both types to get a better understanding of their wants and needs.
eSports coaches
I recruited and interviewed a total of 9 eSports coaches/managers who have experience leading either amateur or professional teams. They are based in Málaga and are between the ages of 21 - 28 years old.
eSports gamers
I recruited and interviewed 7 gamers who aspire to become eSports professionals and practice LoL (League of Legends) an average of 4 hours per day, they are living in Spain and are between the ages of 15 - 21 years old.
The insights
eSports enthusiasts spend hours digging online for relevant gameplay data that will give them an edge over their opponents. This means that users need a way to access that data easily and rapidly to focus on developing their skills.
Improving their skills requires consistency and coaches know that their players are young, meaning that some of them will lack discipline. Coaches need a way to assign tasks and make sure they are completed while saving time so they can focus on more important manners, like building strategies and tactics.
Managing a team requires organizational skills, most coaches rely on Google suite (sheets, excel, calendar etc.) to keep track of meetings, team performance, events and training sessions. Coaches would benefit from having an easy way to manage their teams without having to visit different platforms.
Market trends and user research has shown that eSports enthusiasts value platforms that have dark modes. They know that staring at screens damages the health of their eyes, we had to focus on designing an accessible platform to be in line with industry standards.
Design decisions
Our goal was to add value to coaches and players by providing an easy to use all-in-one tool.
Based on the research findings, the platform must have a dashboard to access relevant data, a tracker tool to visualize gameplay data, a task manager to view player completion rates, a dark mode to be aligned with industry best practices and a calendar to keep track of events/trainings.
The video analyzer feature was desired by stakeholders and users expressed interest. However, it was ultimately dropped due to the scope of the project and feasibility concerns.
Making gameplay data easy to visualize
The most important data users need are champions (LoL characters) win rates & usage rates. Having this information available directly from the dashboard will help coaches and gamers make better drafts and create better strategies.
Simple way to track team performance
After shadowing research participants, we noticed that they needed to distinguish gameplay patterns within their team and their rivals. Since video analytics were not an option, we created a Riftkit tool (on the right) to help users view a timeline of matches with players’ key movements.
Following market trends for managing tasks
After analyzing various platforms with task managers (Trello, Asana etc), we focused on helping users easily create tasks by adapting templates that are based on LoL gameplay.
Testing desirability with dark modes
Our research indicated that dark modes are prevalent in the eSports industry. We conducted a survey and received a total of 85 responses (52 gamers and 33 non-gamers) to make an informed decision about which design would make a better fit for our audience.
Helping users organize events
Coaches who were interviewed rely heavily on Google Calendar to keep track of appointments. This is why we decided to create a calendar that resembles the tool they are used to using.
Results after usability and desirability testing
After 12 usability tests and 4 iterations here are the key metrics of our final design.
What I learned
This has been one of my favorite projects because the eSports community is highly proactive online and open to having conversations about their passion. Overall, I believe we were able to tackle the challenge and provide our client with a creative solution that adds value to their platform.
They are currently launching the product, have received over $300k in funding and are part of Spains’ top 100 most innovative startups. In the end, they were satisfied with the result and I couldn’t be happier to have been a part of their journey.
1.
I was able to streamline the participant recruitment process and also practice research methodologies such as online shadowing (remote contextual inquiries), which can be difficult to conduct in a remote setting.
2.
We did experience a few setbacks along the way and knowing when to move from divergent thinking to convergent was essential to have a good workflow, especially given the time constraints we had for this project.
3.
In the words of Brenda Laurel: “Design isn’t finished until somebody is using it”. At times, our team was obsessed with getting the design just right when what matters most is getting to a point where it’s good enough to test.
Let’s create something cool together!
I’m open for new projects! Message me at m.safinu@gmail.com
