Ludus
2020
Ludus is an online platform that allows for various avenues of discovering new games. It also creates a space for communities to come together to socialize, debate and celebrate with new friends, and finally catalog and organize games your way. What makes Ludus unique?
A community-driven environment that cultivates connections and discoveries, all in one seamless place.
The Problem
The video games industry grows larger every year. However, a platform to help players organize, catalog, and share their collections remains largely missing. Other features which aren’t found are those of socializing and discovering new games. The existence of such a platform is increasingly needed as more digital storefronts saturate the market, leading to confusion on owned games and on which platform as well as fragmenting friend groups.
The current platforms on the market:
Lack intuitiveness in user interfaces and core features outside of the bare essentials
Feature no social elements to share games with others
Have few, if any, avenues of discovering new games
The Solution
A platform that would integrate the aspects of socializing about, organizing, and discovering games in a single, comprehensive, and organic experience.
Finding Opportunities
From the process of going from primary and secondary research to user journey mapping, I intended to re-focus on a holistic experience for new users and find the opportunities which I could explore and add to Ludus.
My primary research consisted of interviews, questionnaires, and follow-up interviews which formed the basis for variable plotting.
My goals for the interviews were as follows:
Find out the behaviour of my users
Find out their current habits
Document any potential pain-points
Explore the why behind their choices
I conducted user interviews with 5 people, finding numerous patterns between them. Following up the interviews with additional questions in case I found a pattern or direction I hadn’t been able to ask during the interview themselves. I mainly sought information to base my personas on and gathered different insights to cover as many fringe choices as possible.
None of the questions were directly about Ludus. They were simply about how their gaming hobby affects their lives and how they interact with the hobby, not just within the games themselves but in the space outside. Additionally, to gain quantitative data, I sent out a survey.
From the process of going from primary and secondary research to user journey mapping, I intended to re-focus on a holistic With the data I had at hand, I was confident to proceed with the variable plotting. A process in which I would put a certain variable on a spectrum and add data points I had obtained from the processes above. After all the data points would be plotted, I would group any clusters or look for patterns. I find that this is a great approach to get a holistic bird eye view of all the data obtained without biasing the Personas on one or two particularly good interviews. It gives voice to all participants equally as any grouping which doesn’t make it to the Primary Persona is given to the Secondary Persona.
User Journey Mapping
The User Journey Map uses the Personas as a guide to find opportunities for Ludus. Each stage shows 6 levels that build on each other, finally arriving at various possible opportunities. I would then carry these findings to the next phases to alleviate any surfaced agitations the user could have.
The 6 levels of the User Journey are as follows, from top to bottom:
Stages: These are broad steps the persona would take in the process of finding and using Ludus. It helps group, categorise and contextualise the levels below.
Steps: These are more specific than Stages. They help precisely map the actions taken by the Persona. It breaks down the stages into smaller pieces which lets me examine them closely while compartmentalizing them for any closer examinations.
Emotions: This help displays the mental space the persona is in during each step of the process. It helps to understand which steps might be the most distressing, confusing or negatively associated.
Questions: This is the first level where opportunities are found. The levels above help comprehend the situation and sympathize with the persona. The questions level starts to unravel the potential problem spaces and solutions by imagining all the questions the persona might have in each state. For example, the Persona may not even know what sort of app or solution they may need to solve their problem.
Pains: This level takes questions and digs deeper to find what the pains behind the questions could be, or even what pains asking the questions could lead to.
What if?: Not to be confused with What If scenarios where the What If can be impossible solutions which are then investigated, What Ifs here ask what could go wrong and help find any recovery systems which could be needed.
Opportunities: With all the work in the levels above, finding the opportunity spaces and the information which would be valuable to the persona becomes much easier. This is the first rough idea of what might be worth pursuing. It helps develop new features to make Ludus more appealing to users.
Among the opportunities found, I noticed there was a way to include the motivation to play into the platform, as a form of gamification. These were the following:
Multiple forms of discovering games and different avenues to find them - Explorers
Ways of finding other like-minded users and socialising with them - Socializers
Platform-wide challenges, achievements and a form of profile level - Achiever
The final step in this process was determining the users my platform would not want to host. Therefore a negative persona development was found to be necessary. In it, I’d outline the user behavior which would be detrimental to the platform and the features and designs which could be created to combat this behavior.
First, I identified the archetypes which embody these negative personas. From there, I looked for solutions and systems which would combat or minimize their behaviors. For example, the Stalker archetype has two potential systems as solutions: a reporting system where other users can notify Ludus of the negative behavior. There is also a user block feature where a user who doesn’t want to interact with another one can simply block them.
Branding and Values
The branding and values had gone through a few iterative cycles before arriving at their now final form. Ludus, the name, was derived from the Latin “Ludere” meaning “To Play”.
Play and the emotional drive behind it - fun, is the core that drives the Ludus brand. To outline Ludus’ guidelines and appropriate usage in external and internal touchpoints, I created a brand book. The first step of brand development required me to find the core values, mission, and vision which would define Ludus
In the Finding Opportunities phase of the project, I conducted secondary research on competitors and market research. It wasn’t mentioned before as it was largely unused as the primary research became the basis for that entire process. This previously unused material, however, could now be applied to determine which direction I wanted to take the brand in.
With the use of Statista, I was able to find the demographics and market trends of the video game industry. This helped to validate the initial idea of such a platform as well as inform me of what sort of demographic I would be trying to appeal to.
From the data obtained I knew Ludus would need to appeal to a young adult demographic. To achieve this, a more modern and colorful aesthetic would be the way to go. It would also reinforce some of the values I had in mind for this brand from the beginning of the project, namely: fun.
The current competitors have a multitude of problems. Some have all of the bellow mentioned, but they all have at least one:
Substandard UI/UX design (Usually due to old age and not up to modern standards)
Usually only one, maximum two of the three pillars of Ludus is present: Organise, Share, Discover
Lack of community
Expensive
Mobile Only
No achievements or gamification
From this secondary research, I found that I wanted to focus on a modern UI that was feature rich but not overwhelming, one in which users still had customizability. With the competitor analysis, I investigated the shortcomings of the current platforms and noticed trends I would avoid when designing Ludus. To decide the next step, I determined I would again create a mood board as an in-between step, to get a better understanding of the direction I wanted Ludus to go in.
Brand Development
The first concrete idea for the logo was an orbit between an infinity symbol. The infinity represented the endless fun, friends, and games to be found on Ludus while the orbit signified how Ludus works alongside a user's gaming hobby, always around as the moon is for the Earth.
It was to signify how Ludus is supplementary to the experience and not the sole focus. This logo would later be changed as it proved to be much too complicated, especially for smaller sizes such as phones. It had too many embellishments and detailing. V1 had then gone on to wireframing and prototyping with not a lot added to this phase. This, however, would change when the redesign happened and I came back to the basics to make a brand profile. From here on is the work of Version 2 (V2).
The brand profile gave me a much more systematic way of developing and implementing the future brand elements and details which I would create. It also served as a great reference point to ask myself if a certain decision matched up to the profile as it created a nice overview of what I wanted to pursue. It’s the same way I used Personas for the User Journey Mapping, only here the reference is the Brand Profile and the outcome is the Brand Book.
The Brand Profile is a simple but effective tool. Using the previously made and unchanged mission, vision, and values, I plotted where I want Ludus to fall on a spectrum of different categories such as Traditional vs Progressive or Simple vs Complex.
The new logo was completely simplified and given a gradient. This added to a more modern and contemporary feel while still lowering the complexity of the more minute details. The shape is easily recognizable from far or close, small or big, and it also still holds a lot of significant meaning on its own and to the larger brand at hand.
The color palette was chosen based on Dark Orchid (Violet) and Onyx (Black) first. I knew I would be making the platform dark mode first, and wanted a vibrant color to contrast the dark background. Violet was chosen for its ability to excite while not signalling another meaning, such as danger with red or accuracy with blue or green. It serves as a good middle ground. Purple is also widely used in gaming to denote incredibly rare items in games with special properties. It’s also associated to magic, royalty and imagination, which altogether served as reasons to have it be the primary color of the platform. Light Peach, Dark Turquoise and Sunset Orange were picked for their various combinations with Dark Orchid as well with each other. However, they would only serve as tertiary colors.
An important aspect of the color work of the brand was also the gradient combinations. I felt gradients were a dynamic and colorful way of representing the brand and I wanted them to be at the forefront of any external communication users would have with the brand, while also being more subtly present in the background of the Ludus platform itself. These gradients would be strung together to create a variety of gradient meshes present all throughout the final version of the Brand book, a significant part of the outcome of the project.
For the typeface choice of the brand, I chose Outfit as it served as a great balance between rounded; soft, and straight edged; corporate. Its middle ground approach offered a diverse use of fonts and pairings which was important as I chose to go with a single font approach to define the brand.
Want to see more?
View the entire brand book here
Prototyping
With the majority of the brand guide created, with the exception of UI elements which would be added after the completion of the prototype, it was time to start laying out the platform navigation and begin wireframing.
Card sorting is a method where I gave participants a list of pages and features all mixed up and asked them to group, label and prioritise them. The results of which would create the preliminary site map which I could use to define the navigation of Ludus. The two card sorts gave me a good idea of the mind map which is formed in the platform’s potential users. This gave a good reference from which the first site map was created.
By using the card sorting as a foundation, I proceeded with a sitemap. The site map served as a good way to visualise the hierarchy the platform would take and give structure to the development of the designs. It served as a blueprint to which I could refer to in regards to navigation in particular.
The central focus of the site would be user generated content. If the platform is run with content only created by Ludus, it would automatically exclude many niches in the video game space as we’d have to hire hundreds of staff just to write on every topic possible which would not be feasible. If I took an approach of community content first, it would allow anyone to write and discuss about any game, topic or niche they’d want and find similar content to read. It also served to deeper customise the experience for each user as they could choose who they wanted to follow and in turn what topics, discussions, games, etc.
Through the sitemap, I also streamlined and simplified the home page. Instead of multiple sections, and multiple types of content, there would only be one main page: the feed, and with it only one type of content: the post. The post would have high flexibility within itself, being able to support images, different text formats, and a variety of additional media types. This would allow creators to be flexible enough to express themselves but simple enough to not overwhelm anyone with an abundance of tools and systems. It would also allow for a consistent look across posts.
On this redesigned home page, the content is the focus. With a frosted glass card design, it would allow the subtle hues of the background gradient to pass through, adding a much-needed pop of color and infusing the overall design with more fun.
An important factor to consider was also the signup and how to approach the first steps a user would take to engage with the platform. At first, I thought choosing the user's favorite game categories would be suitable however, it would also be very broad. To narrow it in, I decided the best approach to understand the user would be to ask them about their 5 favorite games. This would serve as the foundation for their custom taste profile to be generated.
A point of note is the parallels between the types of players and Self-Determination. They both call upon human nature for choice and freedom, community and social circles, prestige and achievement. Providing users with these would create internal motivations to use the platform regularly, forming habits.
Design Features Socializers, Explorers and Achievers
There are multiple avenues of interacting with others for Socializers. Accounting for degrees of closeness, users can either follow other users which will allow them to see all the content made by those users on the home feed, and also additionally appear in a list under the main navigation on the left side. The users can friend other users which will allow for direct communication, too.
Users can also comment directly under posts which allows for an organic culmination of like-minded communities to come together. With this plethora of options, it allows for cross-pollination between communities too. People aren’t usually only into one type of game. For example, User A finds a post about their favorite game by User B discussing certain game mechanics they hadn’t thought of. User A checks User B’s profile to find a variety of posts on all sorts of games by User B. One of the other posts intrigues User A and as he reads the post, he goes to the Conversation section which has a lively discussion of people discussing an aspect of the article. From here, user A may leave a comment or further dive into a rabbit hole of other posts, finding new games to play or research.
For explorers, I tried to offer multiple avenues of finding games, from diverse sub-sections on the Discover page to ways to filter the games for them to find just what they’d be looking for. It was important to offer a variety of ways to find new games and hence I created an abundance of different ways of searching out for games, from sections like Staff Picks to Developers to Watch out for. Another way of exploring is finding different content itself and creators to follow. The community page offers two sections: Popular and For You. One of which is a site-wide most popular posts section which is the same for all. The For You section displays content based on the user’s taste but doesn’t feature any of the people the user follows already, letting them discover new creators and posts.
To create even more variety in the Community page, the right side of the page is dedicated to showing the user other creators they may enjoy based on their preferences and posts which are trending. The differentiation between trending and popular is that popular posts are the ones with the highest total amount of views while trending has a high amount of views per hour or so.
The profile page also allows for a high level of self-autonomy as a variety of customization options are offered to the user.
The profile banner, picture, biography, and name can all be changed. The most important aspect of customization is the taste profile as it allows users to decide what kind of suggestions in regards to games they want and don’t. This choice allows them to fine-tune the understanding of personal taste Ludus would create for them.
The profile page also shows the third aspect of player motivation: achievement and competence. Throughout Ludus, with other users' display names, there is also a hexagon displayed with a number within it. This is the Profile Level. It can be earned through numerous challenges and activities which a user can complete to give experience points and level up. This allows users with high levels to show off while giving users with lower levels goals to work towards. The levels also come with different borders to further differentiate: bronze, silver, and gold.
Transparency
One of the values of Ludus was to be transparent. I believe in a very outward facing platform which interacts with its users. To me, it’s the only true way of knowing how they feel and what they want. To achieve this I implemented two pages within the settings submenu: Your Activity and About.
Your Activity would show all the data the Ludus platform holds on the user but also show interesting statistics users may want to refer to. For example: monthly followers gained or to get a better idea of their screen time a weekly chart of time spent on the platform. Ludus was not created as an addictive social media and it was important to me that users have the information on hand to make decisions for themselves.
The About page would be a regular blog which would allow users to see what is happening behind the scenes on the platform, what features are coming, what changes are being made and any important community announcements. It would also be the place they could voice any feedback they have.
Conclusion
The gaming hobby space remains largely untouched apart from storefronts and new games released. The space is ripe for disruption as more people than ever have access to and play video games. This high degree of accessibility, such as mobile gaming, leaves a void for passionate people who want to share in this hobby. They have no tools to organize, catalog, and discover games nor a community to congregate around.
Ludus, with its community-driven approach, helps change that. It comes with all the tools needed to create content to share with others, find new friends, new favorite games, or obscure masterpieces. Users can finally show others their high levels and numerous achievements all in one place. Ludus completes the out-of-game experience missing in this space.
Final Result
The final result of this project is a comprehensive prototype and a complete visually pleasing Brand book of all the guidelines Ludus requires. The prototype had been tested with 8 participants who had given feedback throughout the development of the platform which allowed me to make sure the platform had a balance of form and function.
Future Work
Better accessibility options for people with disabilities
Prototype with animations
Gather and apply user feedback and testing
Extensive Landing Page
User Onboarding design