CHALLENGES RESEARCH PAINPOINT #1 PAINPOINT #2 PRODUCT STRATEGY VALIDATION LEARNINGS

CHALLENGES

Fuzzy problem space

Since its launch in 2010, the partypoker mobile app's lobby remained largely unchanged, lacking crucial user behaviour data capture. Despite a high volume of customer queries reflecting usability and navigation issues, the specific cause was an enigma to the team.

How to convince product team

With their experience as poker players, the product team assumed they understood users' needs, dismissing the idea of conducting research as a time-consuming endeavour.

As a designer with little expertise in poker, I had to persuade them that not having access to user behaviour was a problem and propose how to solve it. I took a two-step approach:

First, I reached out to customer support for a user complaints report. The fact that even experienced players reported difficulties navigating the application convinced the product team of the importance of deepening our understanding of our users' needs.
Second, I laid out clear research goals and methodologies, presenting a curated list of features that required further investigation to understand their usage patterns among both new and experienced users.

Facilitating a prioritisation session with stakeholders worked. Not only did it make my point more persuasive to the product team but insights also paved clear directions for the project.

RESEARCH

So, what exactly is the problem?

We did comprehensive research to make sure we fully understood the users’ pain points.

Mapping out where we needed to intervene

Players feel unmotivated at different stages of the journey, from claiming the entry promotion or making the initial deposit, to not understanding the titles of the games or which game would be most appropriate for them. Once players have had the gaming experience and are keen to elevate the challenge by increasing the number of games they play simultaneously, they don't quite know how to navigate between the lobby and their current games.

Once we had located the pain points in the user-journey we were ready to jump into the solution space.

pain point #1: how to find suitable games?

Improving game discovery

“The overall experience is good, [...] the only thing is I ended up burning loads of time just trying to find a game that suits me.”
— Grant [Recreational player]

Nearly 20% of the time the users spend in our app was searching for games. This browsing bottleneck frustrated users and limited engagement. By improving game discovery, we boosted playtime, satisfaction, and potential revenue.

Two causes were distinguished:

Poker jargon and game type branding were confusing.
App navigates by game types but game type wasn't top-of-mind for most users.

A. Game type isn't top-of-mind for most users

Most of them told us that they entered the app without a clear idea of the type of game they wanted to play. What they were clear about was their motivations, almost all of them fell somewhere on the following mood spectrum:

Boost seeking

Feeling lucky

Crave wins, seek fun. Need achievable challenges with quick access.

Feel confident, aim for profits. Care about time per hand, players, buy-in price pool and game variant.

Users now always find their perfect game

In the old design, to quickly access an achievable challenge players had to know the app. The branding of the different game types gave no clues.
‍
So in the new design, I added a quick access button to games:

Tap: Users are directed to the game they have played the most in recent times.
Long press: Users select their preferences and by tapping the play button they are sent to a game that perfectly matches their preferences.

Old design

New design

“I was clueless what to play, but knew I wanted something quick, that's when the game finder's a lifesaver!”
— Vid [Recreational player]

In the old design checking game data was a pain

In the old design, to check the data of each game the users needed to go through two screens.

1st in the main lobby the users would choose the type of game.
Then in the game lobby they would choose the specific game they wanted to play.

If the users could not find the specific game they had to go back to the previous page. Going back and forth prevented a smooth exploration of the games.

Old design - Main Lobby

Old design - Game Lobby

In the new design comparing games is natural

In the new design, I merged two lobbies into one and reduced the number of clicks by adding a horizontal game type selection ribbon. This way, when the users enter the lobby, they immediately find the "play now" tab.

“I like the new scroll [navigation], it is intuitive and fast.” —Connor [Recreational player]

New design

B. Game type branding is confusing

In terms of expertise, the majority of app users lie along the following spectrum:

Newbie

Recreational

Seek specific game types

Enjoy learning game type nuances

“... usually I play ‘snap’ at 888, how do I know if it is the same as ‘fast-forward’ [at partypoker]? Is there a way to find that out?”
— Kane [Newbie player]

In the old design nothing helped you to overcome the opacity of the nomenclature

Even with a specific game in mind, players encounter difficulties due to opaque terminology and inconsistent naming conventions across poker apps.

“I don’t know the difference between ‘spins’ and ‘Ultra’. I don’t know if there is a way to understand the difference because I don’t understand that at all.”
— Jon [Recreational player]

Old design - Main Lobby

Old design - Game Lobby

In the new design you can search and find more

In the new design, I added descriptions that elucidate the distinguishing features of each game type.

By incorporating a search function for users seeking specific games, I ensured users can locate them even if they are named differently in other apps.

“I needed the search filters [...] Always found it weird that it wasn't there.”
— Jon [Recreational player]

New design

Introducing our game

Build intercultural bridges

pain point #2: How do I get back to my game table?

Improving game-lobby flow

“There's no clear indication on how to come back [to the game]?”
‍— Kyle [Newbie player]

When in a game, players hesitate to go back to the lobby and join new games for fear of not knowing how to resume the current game. This anxiety hinders exploration and engagement. By alleviating this concern, we encouraged smoother game switching and maximised user enjoyment.

In the old design players had a fear of losing the current game if they switched games

The function to return to users’ current games from the lobby was called active tables, the app supports up to four games at the same time. In the forums players amusingly called it the "radiator". This shows how unintuitive it was.

The radiator does not visually communicate its function, or let the players know their status at each table.

“The ’4 bars' 0000 at the bottom tells nothing”
— Luke [Recreational player]

Old design

Newbie

Recreational

Play max. 2 tables at a time

Play up to 4 tables at a time

In the new design the current games status is always visible

Game status visible at all times. So in the new design, I replaced the old radiator with mini-tables that graphically represent the state of the current games.

This feature allows the players to take advantage of the waiting time by window shopping for other games and return to the game when decisions need to be made.

This new feature not only expands the user's winning opportunities but also intensifies the challenge and dynamism of the gaming experience while increasing the platform's revenues.

“Being able to see the status of my games from anywhere in the app will be the best feature of the next update.”
— Alex S. [Recreational player]

New design

product STRATEGY

Making core actions accessible

“There's no clear indication on where to deposit. The balance on the homepage does a poor job.”
‍— David [Recreational player]

“By my understanding, you can click on a button and that way you’re going to collect your stack, right?!”
‍— Alex [Newbie player]

Sarah Tavel's engagement framework says that "it's not user growth that matters. It's the growth of users completing the top actions". I worked with the data analytics team to find out what our users' top actions were on the desktop version of the client.

Core actions are now easily accessible from the lobby

Users engaged in any of the four core actions exhibited notably higher retention rates compared to those who didn’t. All these functions existed in the old version of the app but are hidden in the menu.

In the new design, the 4 core actions are deployed in strategic areas according to the thumb reach map.

“It is very clear where to deposit in the new design :)"
— David [Recreational player]

Old design

New design

VALIDATION

Boosting user engagement and satisfaction

The changes I made were received positively from users. I also did two usability testing to gauge the effectiveness of the new design.

With the original design, the task completion took on average 6 minutes. With the new design, the set of tasks took on average 2 minutes. A 67% improvement.
Users’ subjective satisfaction with the new design (4.3/5) was 139% higher than the original design (1.8/5).

Simplifying game discovery

“Love having this level of detailed control over finding games, laid out in a very user-friendly way.”

Optimising the flow between game and lobby

“I am super happy with how easily I can navigate between games.”

Implementation of accessible key actions

“Finding the deposit access is definitely much easier in the new design.”

Learnings

What is next?

A significant insight I’ve gained from this project is the delicate balance between quality and cost. It’s clear that no project ever truly concludes, as there’s always more to learn. Nonetheless, it’s crucial for designers to strike a balance among time, cost, and quality constraints.

The overhaul of the partypoker lobby has been an extraordinary journey I deeply appreciated. The partypoker team has provided me the opportunity to contribute to numerous impactful aspects, granting me a sense of ownership and accomplishment. This experience has been both challenging and rewarding, and I look forward to applying the lessons learned in future projects.