The Gameboard console device is the primary product I worked on while at Last Gameboard. It presented many new UX/UI design challenges based on its technical features and abilities. Throughout my tenure working on the Gameboard Product it has gone through a few major milestones, starting with its inception and most recently, the end of its beta program and subsequent launch.
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“What if we had a device that allowed us to experience tabletop gaming in a digital age while still interacting physically and socially with the people we play with, having an infinite library of gaming experiences at our disposal in a portable package?”
Coming in to Gameboard there was very little that had been done already in the form of UX research. While they had used the services of a student program, there wasn't much in the form of personas, user flow diagrams, competitive analysis, or proof of concept. My first steps were to establish these, as they were necessary to move forward.
Simply having conversations with hobbyists and within my own gaming circles, it was very easy to establish a real desire and need for the Gameboard product. Key things I took away were...
There were a few competitors in development and on the market. The main one being Infinity Game Table, by Arcade-1. They definitely were going after the casual and classic board game titles. At the time, looking at them from a product design perspective, there wasn’t a push beyond creating a touch screen surface and interface beyond a 16:9 tablet. What they were doing right was simplicity in their MVP, and using fundamentals in touch interface design that were well established, creating a low entry barrier into the product.
Interviewing and surveying to establish our Player Persona was done over the span of a week. Following a loose script, I asked questions informally to individuals playing tabletop games at the local tabletop game store, Wizard’s Chest. About 8 players were “interviewed” and surveyed to establish three main Player Personas for the Gameboard.
Gary likes to play games with his core groups of friends more and once a week. An avid TTRPG player, those sessions can last up to 10 hrs. Ask to see his “shelfie” and you will see over 100 tabletop games on his wall.
Suzy plays games for the social aspects. A fan of light strategy, party games, and TTRPGs, she is into the interactions and stories told with the people around her. Her sessions are weekly and never above 3 hours.
The family game night is a ritual we all understand. The games this family plays are simple enough for everyone to play, only last max 1 hour, and lean to the casual, classic, and lighter strategy games.
As a team our next steps were to take the information gained and begin to map out our features, both our wish list and for a hopeful MVP.
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After a couple brainstorming sessions with leadership, we established a very in-depth mind map of everything we wanted the OS to feature. I then organized it into a very hopeful MVP feature map. There was a lot of back and forth, mostly myself wanting the MVP to be simpler and focus on three main aspects of the product; Play, Connect, and Organize. We eventually made it a point when planning our paths to launch that the MVP feature map, was only to be followed as a nice to have, after establishing the basics.
Once we had a clear-ish path to MVP, myself and my team began to establish userflows.
At this point in time I became solo as a team, and working on the OS designs was my main task.
I have always been a strong believer in rapid prototyping and mid fidelity to high fidelity wireframing to get experiences clearly presented to both leadership and users. I find that if low fidelity wireframes are presented you ended up getting more feedback and conversations about the lack of content and styling then you do how well the flows work. As a team of one, I decided we would move forward in Gameboard the same way.
Once I had a stable prototype I went ahead with a small run of user testing. I interviewed 8 users across 4 different flows tested, recorded video of the sessions, and used an exit survey for the experience. With direct observation, or at least as much as possible during COVID, I was able to record frustrations and attitudes in general about the product as well.
At this point in time I became solo as a team, and working on the OS designs were my main task.
With our initial prototypes and user testing sessions under way, I began to work on centralizing our visual direction and experience in style guides, visual brand guides, component libraries, and screen handoff libraries. All to create a full and comprehensive design system.
Working tightly with our CTO and Lead Developer, we quickly established a system that became our standard of working still used currently.
In 2023 I was tasked with creating a new and updated visual brand guide. This was sent to any marketing partners, gaming influencers, and affiliates being used to promote and highlight Gameboard as a product.
In November 2022 We launched our Beta Release Program. Over 500 Gameboards were sent out to users that had purchased a Gameboard, and had volunteered to be a part of the testing program. While we gained a lot of useful metrics through our software in general, I was conducting interviews and releasing a survey to gain my own data. Out of the 500 users I interviewed 18 personally, and we received 28 responses to the survey.
Revisions to improve things we learned like making the onboarding tutorial available through settings, doing more to teach features through gameplay, indicating and educating on drawer usage, as well as converting some Companion experiences onto the Gameboard to lessen the need for an external tool. One major revision I worked on heavily was the player drawer experience, cleaning it up, adding profiles and clear guest access, as well as adding confirmations to certain actions to prevent accidental interactions due to our hardware’s limitations at the time.
The currently released product as it sits today for Gameboard's users is represented in the video below. Feel free to visit Last Gameboard to see more media and information about the product, and if you're in the Denver metro area, reach out if you're curious to play a game together. I have many live demos, games, and really I just like having new people to play with.
