PlayerShare.GG

Esport Stock Market

PlayerShare.GG

The Esport Stock Market

The Esports industry is booming in the last ten years. Millions of fans are willing to spend time and money on this new form of sports. Our client saw the need to invest the athletes and trade shares inspired by Fantasy Sports. They also wanted to incorporate cryptocurrency. However, it can be overwhelming for first-time players to understand how the platform works.

My Role

UX designer & Lead UI designer

Duration

Two and a half Weeks

Scope

Provide onboarding experiences and keep users engaged

Project Platform

Desktop & Responsive Web

What's the Context?

PlayerShare is gearing up for their beta release and wants to validate their preliminary designs through usability testing and further user research. In order to release their minimum viable product (MVP), users need to be able to create an account and purchase/sell shares on the platform.

The Challenge

This project is about using Cryptocurrency to invest users' favorite Esport Athletes inspired by Fantasy Sport.

Because of layers of layers of concepts involving in the platform, it is essential to create an onboarding experience from signing up to making the first transaction.

It is also crucial to keep users hooked, and make sure they come back to the platform from time to time, both in-season and off-season.

Desk Research and User Interview

It was the first time I worked with real-world clients, and it was also the first time I encountered a project with many complicated concepts, making sure everyone on the team was on the same page about the three key concepts: Esports, Fantasy Sports, and Cryptocurrency. After the meeting with the stakeholder, I had to do snowball recruiting, meaning to ask the interviewees if there is anyone they know that we can potentially reach for, in order to get enough amount of interviewees. In the end, we interviewed 14 people in total, and because some people are familiar with more than one aspect. We have 11 people talking about Esport, 10 people talking about Fantasy sport, and 9 people talking about cryptocurrency.

Personality

People follow esports players not only based on their performance but also their personality.

“It's a combination of their skill and the game, and balancing that with their personality, and the actual stream.”

Opportunity

Take inspiration from the personality of players and put it into the platform (gamification around badges, tutorial, GG Score)
Build a way for users to feel invested long-term in their favorite players

Duration

The longer a fantasy “season” ran, the more invested players felt.

“The dailys are more of an optimization problem where there are fewer constraints, the constraint is the money and how you spend it...it's a more math-based approach. I think there is more feeling in terms of a regular draft.”

Opportunity

Lean into the feeling/personality provided by “Keeper” fantasy sports
Reward users for staying invested with players

Information

Users need information to make decisions.

“I guess more specifically, it can be difficult to track stats for how good a sports player is.”

“Without news, you're not making informed decisions. You're just throwing darts at the wall.”

Opportunity

Provide stats (and their context) to players
Provide news to players

Insights from Testing the Existing Prototype

What Worked

Concept (Macro level)

Excited to play

“How are shares established, and how many

shares are there?”

What Didn’t Work

Details (Micro level)
Challenging to understand
Need context to play

“It looks like an asset exchange, where it's listing different things you could potentially buy at their price and the change in real-time.”

Persona- Matt

Software Developer

Job

Age

Favorite Games

Matt enjoys watching football, participating in fantasy sports leagues with friends, playing esports, and watching people stream his favorite games. When watching a stream, Matt enjoys that he can interact in real-time, not only learning about the streamer’s in-game strategy but their personality as well.

Matt loves the social aspect of esports, and feels at home in the community, whether chatting online during a stream, attending a live event, or watching from a bar with other fans. Because he spends so much time with the game, he forms opinions about the players. His opinions are backed by research, statistics, and his “gut,” and he makes predictions on who will win based on information and intuition. He enjoys being right as much as he enjoys the trash talk that comes from discussing the game with his friends.

Goals

Stay up-to-date with players and the community
Connect with others online and in-person
Discuss individual games and the metagame
Compete with others based on his player and game knowledge
Feel invested in players long-term

Frustrations

Recognition for his knowledge/predictions
Limited by regular fantasy sports roster play
Waiting until the season begins to play fantasy sports
Searching scattered news and data
Information can be challenging to evaluate

The Opportunity

Matt is new to PlayerShare and he wants to play.

How might we introduce Matt to PlayerShare and provide him the content he needs to get started and stay engaged?

The Solution

Create an account

Activity 1

Understand the dashboard

Activity 2

Know the marketplace

Activity 3

Place an order

Activity 4

The Iterations

1. Create an account

Prototype 1

Didn’t understand why integrations were required
Didn’t understand what integrations did

“What’s a Civic Account?”

“This uses cryptocurrency?”

Prototype 2

Better, but some still needed more context about integrations

“I am confused because it asked me for the identity without showing enough or gaining my trust.”

Prototype 3 (Final)

Now has clearer explanations of:
- What integrations are
- How integrations work
- Why they should be trusted

2. Understand the dashboard

Prototype 1

Users easily understood the layout
Had questions about content/game mechanics
Loved the concept of Dividends

“It’s like you’re winning free money. It feels more like a game…I’m much more willing to play this because of the extra money and I don’t have to care so much about the stock market aspect.”

Prototype 2

Once explained, liked GG Score
Wanted more info on Activity (Names too long, info too brief, expected detailed transactions)
Connect Achievements to GG Score

“Achievements do not have to be at the same level as shares/bonuses.”

Prototype 3 (Final)

Provided more spaces and opportunities for activities, lived at the same level as Shares / Bonus
Group achievement with GG sore since they are related concepts
Sort for graph easier to use

3. Understand the marketplace

Prototype 1

The market was overwhelming
Wanted more organized info
Wanted definitions of metrics

“This is very overwhelming. There is a lot of information and I don’t understand the terms.”

Prototype 2

Instantly understood market was full of players
Still questions about some terms

“How do things fluctuate? Everyone knows in a stock market set to buy low and sell high, but I don’t know how something gains value here. There is no context."

Prototype 3 (Final)