Social Sustainability on Uplay
During the spring of 2019, I and worked together with Massive Entertainment to develop and redesign their digital distribution platform for games - Uplay. My role during the project was User Experience (UX) designer working together with my colleagues throughout the design process with everything from UX research to the final prototype. In collaboration with Massive Entertainment, I also conducted my bachelors' thesis on the topic of a more sustainable environment for gamers.
Responsibilities
UX Design
UI Design
Thesis Writer
Client
Ubisoft
Year
2019
Background & Research
To begin the design process of redesigning the gaming platform Uplay, we began with getting to know the company, the design team, and the current state of Uplay. This was important to learn about Massive's wishes and thoughts on the project.
Early on we conducted several interviews, both users and stakeholders. Interviewing users is the focal point during this stage because this is where we identify user needs and their pain points, which is important when designing a user-centric solution. Interviewing stakeholders was also very important to be able to get knowledge around technical constraints surrounding the platform.
Background & Research
An exciting phase in the design process is taking care of all the data from the interviews and other types of research. This is where one can truly define the problem. We did this through the method of coding and categorizing to find patterns within the data. Since Uplay is a service we used some service design methods to establish user journeys and competitive analysis. After that, we summarized with one persona and three different user scenarios.
At this point, we had come to know that there was a problem specifically on gaming platforms concerning unsustainable social interactions and toxic behavior. Therefore from this point on in the design process, we decided to focus on social sustainability.
Design Solution
The outcome of the project was a lo-fi prototype made in Adobe XD showcasing the new social features. The social features were a personal account where the users can show off their badges and achievements and also their social status. All these new features were made to increase the social engagement on Uplay, hence benefiting Massive.
But because of the increase of social accessibility and knowing beforehand the problems surrounding toxic behavior we also implemented features that facilitate critical thinking amongst the users. To reach the polished prototype we iterated through sketches, wireframes, and mockups, of course, all tested through fitting methods and critique sessions.