Puenpuen.app

Problem

The current selection of online mobile games for community gatherings fails to resonate with the Thai community's culture, humor, and language, and also presents numerous user experience challenges.

Solution

This project is still on going, check back for more updates! 

My proposed solution aims not only to provide entertainment but also to foster a sense of belonging, enhance community bonds, and create lasting memories through friendly competition and culturally relevant content.

UX Research

For me, the initial phase of any project involves gaining a comprehensive understanding of the project's context. This includes identifying the needs of the people involved, pinpointing the problem at hand, and reviewing existing solutions in the market to assess the unmet needs.

Contextual Inquiry‍

Goal: Investigate the behavior and interests of Thai students studying abroad during a community event. My aim was to analyze the dynamics within a large group setting, as it tends to reveal a broader spectrum of behaviors, including edge cases that are less likely to occur in smaller groups.

Key Findings

• Importance of Personalization: When participants discovered they could customize their usernames in one of the apps, all of them exited the game room to modify their usernames, despite this causing a delay in the game's start.
• Engagement Through Competition: Games that featured team competitions and had a clear points or ranking system observed higher engagement levels compared to those without an understandable scoring system.
• Need for Simplified Setup: Participants encountered difficulties during the setup process, particularly in joining game rooms, due to the challenges of conveying the game code to a large group and the necessity of selecting certain game settings beforehand. This often led to participants frequently exiting and re-entering the game room. Additionally, the inability to transfer game room ownership if the original owner disconnects was problematic.
• Clarity and Accessibility of Instructions: The lack of clear instructions or explanations for playing the mini-games caused confusion among participants, underscoring the need for readily available and comprehensible guidelines.
• Preference for Straightforward Mini-Games: In a large group setting, participants preferred engaging in simpler mini-games. Complex games requiring lengthy explanations tended to lose the group's attention.

Market Research Summary

Goal: Examine current solutions and their functionalities to pinpoint areas lacking satisfactory support. I examined three prominent apps within the Thai community—Chayen, Tenten Arcade, and Pokpok—to assess their onboarding processes and gameplay experiences. Subsequently, I will discern crucial features and traits aligning with the requirements of the target users, as determined through contextual inquiry.

Key Characteristics

• The game app should to automatically connect the account to the game center and clearly indicate this linkage.
• The game app should offer a variety of interactive games suitable for both mobile play and in-person interaction.
• Prioritize games that are intuitive and require minimal explanation.
• Include both competitive mode and group gameplay mode options.
• Game instructions should feature animated demonstrations in addition to textual explanations.

Design

User Experience Flow & Wireframe for Ideation

I've been diving into the early stages of sketching out a user flow diagram, pulling together insights from our market research and what we've learned from just watching how people use stuff (that's the contextual inquiry bit). This is really about thinking through all the different ways someone might use the game, and making sure we don't miss those weird edge cases.

So, I've been mapping out the game from both the game owner's and the players' viewpoints because they're going to see different things on their screens. I also threw in some wireframes into the mix. These sketches are based on the features and needs we spotted during our research phase.

Key Considerations

• Incorporating Development Logic: It's crucial to include the necessary logic for development within the user flow. This not only ensures that outlier scenarios are thoroughly addressed but also facilitates a smoother transition from design to code for the development team. Typically, developers would need to establish their logic flow independently; however, integrating UX user flow and development logic allows both designers and developers to align more closely.
• Addressing Edge Cases: Since we're building a multiplayer game, there's always the chance of unexpected behaviors happening when you have a multiplayer game experience. This consideration is especially important for maintaining a seamless and enjoyable gaming experience for all users.