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Project Details
This project was broken down into two phases:
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Phase One:
Create a game that helps young boys in Iran take the right course of action when facing a complicated emotion about interacting with girls, based on data and research.
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Phase Two:
Identifying the problems after the beta release, synthesizing data, and iterating.
Role
Company
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UI/UX Design Lead
Team
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Product Owner
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Junior Designers
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Game Designers
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Programmers
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Animators
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Marketing Team
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Stalkholders
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Psychologist
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The Little Soul
What I used:
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Competitor Analysis, User Research, Define Persona, ideating, Brainstorming Workshop, Sketching, Mockups, Prototype, test, UI & Visual Design.
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Phase One:
Product Goal
Sexual harassment in Iran has a higher rate among teenagers compared to other counties. Our goal was to create an educational platform that breaks this cycle by education teenage boys.
Product Goal
My Process
I used double diamond to narrow down the right options and deliver the right design + test the outcome + improve and iterate based on new data.
Reserach
Synthesize
Narrowing the schope
Ideate
Deliver
Deliver
Deliver
Design the right thing!
Design things right!
User Reserach strategy
Research Goals
Our goals for doing this research are as follows:
1- What causes this problem among teenagers?
2- What are the best practices that solve or decrease the problem?
3- What is the best platform that we can use to teach those best practices?
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Research Methods
Focus groups with therapists to find the problem and best practices.
The survey, card sorting, and competitor's research for finding the best platform and
best narrative to attract our target market.
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Understanding The Problem
Focus groups
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I started my research with a focus group of therapists. My goal was to understand the following:
What causes this problem among teenagers?
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Result
The key takeaway after talking with four therapists who are directly working with our target market was:
1- One of the main issues that cause this behavior is boys not knowing how to control their emotions and impulses at this age.
2- They don't really understand their behavior's consequences on the other person's emotions.
Opportunities
Our product can teach best practices for this age to deal with emotions and impulses.
Our product can show the result of different actions and their consequences through a story.
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Focus groups
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The second focus group was to understand:
1-What best practices are used for teenage boys to deal with their impulses and emotions?
Result
CBT ( cognitive behavioral therapy) and EFT ( emotion-focused therapy ) are two of the standard practices used by most therapists.
User Research
After understanding the problem and the potential solutions, I started researching our target market to find out:
1- What kind of apps they're more attracted to?
2- What kind of subjects ( regarding the opposite sex ) is interesting for them?
My goal was to come up with a platform and subject to combine them with those psychological methods. We wanted to make sure that our product would be used for our target market.
Surveys
I conducted a survey among 100 teenage boys in Iran and my key findings were:
1- The most common learning apps that are interesting and engaging for teenagers are designed as games.
2- The topics that are interesting and attractive for boys are:
A- What ( how ) do girls think?
B- How they can engage with girls?
C- How they can start a conversation?
D- How they can attract girls.
20 boys 13-15, have been asked to sort these cards based on their interest level in these subjects.
Card sorting
In our card-sorting sessions, 20 participants organized topics based on what they were most interested in and what they were least interested in. It helps us for designing information architecture for our product as well as work on branding and marketing based on our user’s priorities.
In our card-sorting sessions, 20 participants organized topics based on what they were most interested in and what they were least interested in. It helps us for designing information architecture for our product as well as work on branding and marketing based on our user’s priorities.
In our card-sorting sessions, 20 participants organized topics based on what they were most interested in and what they were least interested in. It helps us for designing information architecture for our product as well as work on branding and marketing based on our user’s priorities.
Based on the cars that have been sorted by our target group, we defined our primary and secondary subjects to focus on in the game.
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Persona
Name
Milad
Demographics
16 yeras old, student, live in Tehran ( capital ), have access to phone and internet.
Psychographic
-He uses apps just for fun and game and doesn't like to be educated.
-His favorite subject is to learn how he can attract girls!
Needs:
Attention, being seen, feeling like a “man”, feeling in control and in power
Pain points
At this age, he is confused about his impulses and his desire. He chooses impulsive behavior toward the opposite sex.
Our product shouldn't feel "educational." It should be empowering and make them feel mature and cool! For instance, the main character in the app should illustrate such a personality, so our target market can feel connected.
1-Helping them by showing them how to deal with their impulses
2-Demonstrate the result of their behavior in the application.
We have enough educational stuff at school! I don't want more lessons after that! I want to play a game or watch TV!​
One of the users
Key Note
He will run away from any educational content! The only way is to keep his attention by feeding his curiosity and gamifying the message.
Market Research
First, I start searching to gather more information about game digital game users in our target age in Iran.
My goal was to define the popular genres. After action games, the second most popular genre was strategy games.
Opportunity:
One of the main practices that have been used by therapists to help teenagers face their impulses is EFT, and a strategy game could be an excellent platform to combine using strategy with EFT methods.
Ideation
I guided a brainstorming workshop to come up with different ideas and choose the right features based on cost and effectiveness.
Throughtout the workshop, I created low-fodelity mockups based on chosen ideas. At the end, we chose two final ideas that we needed to choose from.
Next, I contacted a few influencers whose target market was teenage boys in Iran. He shared both ideas and created a survey, 138 people responded, and 95 of them chose the second idea!
idea 01​
A content app, that helps young boys to learn how to navigate through difficult emotions. its main focus is to increase mindfulness and empathy in teenage boys, especially in regard to their interactions with the opposite sex. The content includes video, audio, and notepad for taking notes and writing related experiences, and sharing with others.
idea 02
A game that teaches you how to navigate through difficult emotions by facing inner shadows,
By mastering your emotions, the main character finally is able to understand girl's emotions too.
For this empowered boy, it's easy to start the convesration and create connection with girls.
Sketching
Design Process
Creating a game that presents different options as the best practices when facing a complicated emotion. Like Pokemon, but with mindful options to face the challenge.
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I collaborated with other designers to write user scenarios, then sketched out the wireframe.
Mockups
I created mockups to share with the rest of the team and got feedback. We have some iterations based on feedbacks before we move forward.
Avatar's Profile
Lord's Cards
Prototype
Beta Release
We released the beta version to gather feedback from our users. In the next phase, I explain the challenges we faced and how we solved them.
Iterate
After releasing the beta version, the retention rate was almost 42%. The goal of redesigning the experince was to decrease the retention rate to less than 20%.
My task for phase two was:
-Identify the problem.
- Present design solutions.
-Prototype/testing.
-Create a modern design guide for our junior UI designer.
Solving the Right Problem
I synched with my data scientist to get a better understanding of where most of our users are dropping out.
Define Objectives for Usibility Testing
I conducted interviews with 5 players to understand why they were dropping out so early.
Define Objectives for Usibility Testing
What worked:
-None of the 5 players had a problem understanding the game rules.
What didn't worked:
-3/5 users mentioned they like to play the first game faster. One mentioned that he’d prefer to skip the backstory.
-4/5 users had problems remembering each card rule before taking the action. Opening a new screen with this information seemed like a lot of work and made the playing less fun.
Actionable Key Points
A. Backstory time
Some sentences in the backstory are repetitive. We can delete/shorten some sentences to get to the first gameplay faster.
B. Game information
The player should be able to see all the information in the battle easily while considering cognitive overload.
C. Add skip button
Player should be able to skip the backstory
Problem l Iterations
A-Backstory:
I noticed the body language and listened to what users said on each screen. 
I cut the sentences with the least engagement and attention without hurting the main storyline. I shared my suggestions and got the team’s feedback before moving forward.
B-Skip Button:
In the second step, I added a Skip button as soon as the backstory started.
Problem ll Iterations
Game Information
We assumed showing the actions without all the information during gameplay would increase engagement. However, users said that guessing and not seeing the information while trying to make decisions was frustrating. Therefore, I started visually exploring how we can have all the information on screen without overwhelming the player.
Design Process
Sketching
Design objective: Keep the player in the context of the game when we share cards and the lord’s information.
Wireframes & Mockups
Designing the power card as an overlay
Design the enemy profile as an overlay as well as exploring our game designer new idea
Userflow Iteration
Prototype
Results
What we changed:
The backstory time changed from 3:20 min to 2:05 min.
We added a skip button.
We tweaked the story a little bit to start with excitement and surprise for our audience.
Result:
We launched with this change, and the ~20% retention rate of the backstory decreased by half to almost ~10% by these simple changes.
What we changed:
Redesign the card's and enemy's information as an overlay instead of new screens.
Result:
32% retention rate in the first game decreased to 18%.
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Success Measures
The important KPI that was important for the product manager for the final release was the retention rate. Our
goal was to decrease the 32% retention rate in the first half of the app to less than 25%. After making these
changes, the number changed to 18%.
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