Boardible

Timeline: January 2024 — June 2024

Boardible is a mobile board game startup that aims to bring physical products to a digital space. I was tasked with revising the user experience for their Android and iOS app landing page to increase user conversion for their app with 2000+ daily users.

UX Design Information Architecture

Key insights from user interviews

  • For users, convenience dictates connection

    Boardible is a multiplayer board game platform, so it originally used 'UserTag' to link users in the same room. UserTag was a large pain point for users, so they gravitated toward familiar, industry-standard concepts like room codes and a ‘share’ feature. None of the users I interviewed could use the UserTag properly. Revising the user-to-user connection interface would be essential to increasing user conversion.

  • Users liked TV integration, but only when easily accessible

    Boardible currently has a TV-specialized set of interfaces for its hosted games, though it was underused by users. Though users could mirror their screens easily with Boardible's current interface, users in a younger demographic (early-stage couples and college students) often did not have access to traditional TVs. Finding ways to communicate Boardible's adaptability to large screen alternatives to TV like laptops, was also a central part of my research.

  • Users like organization, but not too much organization

    Categories are quite popular and many liked the organization. In my first overview of the current design, I noted a few instances of repetition that can be eliminated.

    As my research developed, I also looked into how category names influence users' interactions with them. For example, nods to pricing — which appeared in some categories — was noted to be a worry for some users.

These interviews were synthesized over a period of a few months. I looked to complete interviews and re-interviews of college students as well as older couples. To standardize all the interviews, I developed an interview guide. After these interviews, I classified the sentiments expressed into categories and subcategories, where relevant. I simplified these themes into insights — and highlighted issues with straightforward solutions.

But not all of the obstacles faced by the users in our tests had straightforward solutions — that’s where my designs came in!

Design approach

  1. HOW MIGHT WE PROMPTS

How might we…

  • make a UserTag clearer for players?

  • encourage players to make friends as opposed to a room, and do this without inundating them with information?

  • encourage TV use?

  • use iconography and visual cues to communicate game themes with our users?

  • streamline the process for multiplayer play for new players?

As a result of searching for these opportunities for growth, the founder and I discussed how our first metric of success could be defined as a new player connecting to another and beginning a game.

2. MAPPING THE USER JOURNEY

I looked to cover all the major friction points experienced by users when beginning a new multiplayer experience on Boardible. While most of the interviews saw users switching their approach, one can infer that enough of these “switches” could cause a new person — one not being interviewed, perhaps — to leave the app entirely.

3. PAPER WIREFRAMES

4. REDESIGNING LANDING PAGE

NEW

vs. OLD

Note: this UI change coincided with a major design overhaul for the company!

5. REDESIGNING MULTIPLAYER

Step 1. The user selects a game and joins a room through a QR code and camera prompt, negating the UserTag and making the experience more intuitive.

Step 2. Users join a room and are prompted to begin the game. There is also clearer indication of what game is selected and how to share the room beyond the application.

Step 3. To encourage interaction with our TV and large screen interfaces, a pop-up prompts users to connecting another surface. Though there’s a tradeoff since users no longer have an uninterrupted flow, this was an aspect of Boardible that separated it from its direct competitors.

The three-step mock-up shows a modified flow.

2.

3.

Changes

  1. Removal of room code at the top (unintentionally cropped by the first UI designers of the app)

  2. Inclusion of a filter function, as users would spend a lot of time scrolling due to indecision

  3. Featured game with a tagline or a short description, as users reported that thumbnails did not give users ample information about the games

  4. Increased margins and heightened use of iconography throughout game library

My first round of user interviews saw no one successfully connect via UserTag functionality. The QR code and camera system had a 100% success rate for users that were tested.

6. REDESIGNING GAME PAGE

NEW

vs. OLD

I moved around iconography to make “like” and “share” functionalities clearer.

These changes were not as intensive as the ones found on other UI flows I worked on, but still a small improvement on what was there before!

  • The lobby, at this stage, had gone through two rounds of user testing and several iterations! The current iteration of the app is live on the App Store and Google Play Store, and is strongly based in the findings above.

  • I learned a lot about the importance of prioritization and adaptability in UX redesigns. As I was working on a live product, I was forced to remain flexible with the solutions that could feasibly be implemented.