Helping people to use the Easy Wallet, an app based on Easycard, like they are using the physical card.
Why EA? Why Origin?
Compare with other companies. EA is public shared, not every gaming company goes this way.
Look at their stock price in the market. Gaming experience does matter when EA launching a new game, it will influences their stock price directly. And the process before the user opens the game which they want to play is also important.
One of my friends mentioned that he doesn't know how to search for a game that he wants to play at first, and doesn't even know he can buy a game on Origin. Users are not quite so satisfied with their gaming platform.
Reference: Yahoo Finance, IGN
Problem
First off, I did some user research; to get feedback and try to understand if Origin was gone, did the user feels disappointed?
85% of my survey participants said the gaming platform they use the most was Steam. 50% of them gave Origin a 3 out of 5 points. (Avg. was 3.3). And half of them were confused about the homepage when they open the Origin at the first time.
The result of user research
Step 1
User research, Competitive analysis
In my survey result, 93% of the participants sorted Steam as the best one, 43% of them sorted Uplay as the second both better than Origin. And analyze the strategy of each platform (Steam, Uplay, Epicgames, Windows store).
Step 2
Build the persona
Use the the result of the research to build the persona, to form the shape of the user; two main types of user : no experience on any gaming platform, Gamer
Step 3
The target
I combined the result of the survey and the strategy from other competitors to shape the structure of the Origin, and figure out what makes Origin special that the user might stay in their platform.
Primary issues
Lack of resources
Not user friendly to newcomer
The buying process was not fluent
UI seems outdated
The solution
Make a different image, instead of letting the user compare with other platforms explicitly.
Style Picker — Make user trust. The newcomer was confused about it, but the old user not.
Story telling, Community and Brand — People want more games, but what is EA’s strategy? What are the things that others don’t have? Instead of letting the user add non-origin games, let the user know what makes EA special.
The buying process — People like Origin Access(membership) and freebies but selling a game pack is also important.
Early phase of design process
Step 1
As many as I can
I tried to get as many ideas as I can in the early phase of the design process, using the crazy 8 method to define the flow of each idea.
Step 2
The Flow
Then using the user journey and user flow to built the flow chart of each process, before dive into the digital process.
Step 3
The Low-Fi
Added the main color of the brand, to get the early image of the platform. Because most of the gaming platforms use the dark-colored, this is one of the reasons that makes Origin different.
I combined the result of the survey and the strategy from other competitors to shape the structure of the Origin.
Figure out what makes Origin special that the user might stay in their platform. The strategy of Uplay seems more suitable for Origin because they both only include the games which were developed by their company, the quality of the platform is more important than the number of games they have.
I tried to figure out which area should be popping out, and which should be smooth and readable.
The navigation bar will be the thing that not only tells the user where can they go, but tell them what Origin also have. Therefore I keep it simple and clear and bring the recent games shortcut which only located on the homepage in the original version, to show on the navbar. So the user can click the shortcut wherever the page they were located.
Service is as important as selling a product to the user. And there were a lot of competitors outside, in the market. In 2019, many companies had developed thousand or even millions of games which already launched on a different platform.
Therefore make our characteristic popping out will be so important to lets the user knows our difference.
For example, have a Forums to build a bridge between each gamer, and showcasing EA’s mobile games as well. Not only discussing console games but also the mobile games which other companies don’t have.
Final image
What makes Origin special?
The thumbnails for each game was already colorful. Therefore I don’t use too many colors in the layout, only the essential color of the logo and the contrasting colors of that. But not only the color makes Origin different than others, but It also because of what it has.
Showing the option
What I changed on the buying process is showing the option which the user chooses. It is basic to let the user satisfied. If we have a better option for which that user wants to buy, let the user compare the option by themselves instead of hiding the secondary option.
To build the trust
To let the newcomer feels friendly in their first experience. I added a style picker page before they landing on the homepage, to help them find the games or information they want quicker, and also to let the user feels the Origin is caring about what is user’s favorite. Just like every time we open a new game, it will ask us we are a beginner for this kind of game or not.
Talk to the user.
I made more interaction on the welcome text, users can hide the welcome text if they don’t want to see that for a moment, and the next time they open it the text will change like the Origin is talking to them. In this case, I want this function more than just a welcome text, but also to be an assistant to remind the user some information or news. To be a part of Origin's feature service, showing the difference from others.
Takeaways
Couple decade ago, some people still using Windows 98, playing the super Mario.
But in 2019, there are millions of games being launched on many different kinds of platforms. People are too busy these days, we don't have time to spend hundreds of hours on the wrong game or a bad gaming process. If playing a game seems painful, then we probably aren't having fun with it. Therefore, consumers might use other products.
This project helps me to learn that in some cases, a newcomer's needs are not the same as an older user's needs. The newcomer may be confused by some of the UI and buttons, but not the older user. Even though the games on the platform may not be the best ones, but show the user a difference, the user will stay. It is important to get people to trust something before they pay for it.
