MATCH 3 GAME

MATCH 3 GAME

Role:
UX Lead

Brand:
PINK

Objective:
Build a native app game

The PINK Nation App has historically been tailored to the collegiate customer focusing on driving engagement through commerce and large brand initiatives that provide unique interactive experiences for customers. As an initiative to drive app engagement and increase return visitors, we conceptualized an interactive match 3 game that gave signed in users the opportunity to compete and win gift cards by playing daily challenges against other users in the app. 

KPIs: 

  • Increase in App Engagement 

  • Customer Retention & Increase in Return Visitors 

  • Customer Acquisition 

  • Increase in conversation

Process

User Research, Competitive Research, Creative Workshops, Generative Research, Wireframing and Usability Testing

Phase | Discovery: 

As the Lead UX Designer on this work, I began the project by understanding business objectives and distilling the marketing brief into clear goals and assumptions by leading interactive discussions with key stakeholders. Prior to defining a solution, I lead multiple creative workshops that focused on quantitive ideation in order to narrow down the desired direction that aligned most closely with marketing strategy and KPIs. Once alignment was met around the idea of an in app game, I initiated and lead a research phase that included market and competitive analysis, research into game psychology and in person testing of popular app games. I then synthesis this research into key findings that outlined best practices, user needs and strategic opportunities. 

Phase | Design: 

Following alignment on the objectives of the game, I partnered with the development team on the creation of the game mechanics. This work enabled me to gain valuable knowledge of functional requirements and limitations of native game platforms and apply my expertise of user behaviors to conceptualize mobile friendly interaction models. With the help of POCs build by the development team, I started iterating on the creative execution of the game in the form of low and high fidelity wireframes and designing seamless user flows. Once I had a clear outline of user scenarios, key interactions and the foundations of the game mechanics, I started collaborating with the visual design team to begin applying storytelling and branding to bring the game to life. As this was a long term engagement, the evergreen game mechanics enabled marketing to update branding according to seasonal objectives and priorities.

Phase | Launch: 

Since this game supported long term goals of customer retention, it needed to remain relevant and exciting for an extended period of time. As part of that initiative, we took a test and learn approach once the initial build of the game was complete and conducted focus groups to user test the game and receive honest customer feedback regarding the mechanics and branding. This allowed us to iterate and update prior to launching the first version of the game but also continue optimizing the experience with each update. The game was a huge success as it was the first of its kind to offer customers an interactive was to engage with the commerce aspect of the app. We saw an increase in return visitors, encouraged by the daily competitive element to continue visiting and interacting with the app. Although unfortunately the game eventually no longer matched the customer projection of the brand and it was removed, many customers requested the comeback of the game.

Results

Key Features: 

  • Easy and familiar game mechanics to simplify user onboarding

  • Daily leaderboards 

  • Monetary prices incentivizing in app shopping

  • Frequent visual updates to the game to keep it fresh and exciting

  • Relevant animation, motion and sound effects to augment the game

Customer Feedback:

  • “Super fun friendly game. “

  • “I’m on the app just as much as social media because of the game.”

  • “Love that the app is interactive.”

  • “Love playing the challenges.”

  • “Very addicting game.”