PlayPal
Project Type:
Product Design
Brand Design
Prototyping
Client:
My Roles:
Visual Designer
Usability Tester
Teammate:
Duration:
May 29 - May 31, 2020
(48 hours)
Tools:
Adobe XD
Photoshop
Illustrator
PlayPal is a mobile app for beginner gamers to discover games, friends, news, and more.
Users are able to explore game relevant content that is based on their platform of choice, unique taste, and skills. With PlayPal, gamers can easily connect with like-minded individuals, participate in playing/streaming games, and share their discoveries to get special badges. This gamification feature and the vibrant visual design of the app keep new and returning gamers engaged. PlayPal acknowledges the diffusion of communities during the Covid-19 pandemic and hones in on the concept of a virtual community for the users’ entertainment and well-being, while they stay at home.
COMPETITION Introduction:
In late May of 2020, I had the opportunity to compete in College + Activision Creative Jam LIVE, which was hosted by Adobe and Activision. This event brought together current and recently graduated college students from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. To compete, each student had to be in a team of two to three members. I partnered up with Leily Khatibi for this competition to create our project, PlayPal.
Activision announced the design challenge during the kickoff of the virtual event. Each team had 48 hours to complete their projects using Adobe XD.
Design Challenge:
The challenge was to design and prototype a proficiency-focused mobile app for new gamers. The app should allow users to discover new games that are appropriate for their age while staying connected with their friends and family. The app should make players use skills such as problem-solving, multi-tasking, social skills, and more. As mentioned above, the project has to be designed and prototyped in Adobe XD.
Solution:
According to Polygon, there has been a rise of new gamers due to the worldwide pandemic. People are looking for new ways to stay connected with others and also find ways to entertain themselves as they are practicing social distancing. Keeping this in mind, our main goals for our apps were:
Help users discover new games and eSports culture through gamification
Stay connected with friends and family
Learn about the history and development of games
*Our target audience for PlayPal was young adults.
Research:
Alyssa Homan (associate design team leader at Activision) was the guest speaker during the introduction/kickoff of the event fo the competition. During her talk, Homan explained the main elements gamers look for when using a game-related application. Some of the topics she went over were:
Communication
Without having an easy way to communicate with others during the game, players will not be able to work as a team while playing the game. For example, teams must be able to make a plan and look out for each other by communicating through their headsets during the game while playing Call of Duty.
Crossplay
Having the ability to playing with other players regardless of what platform they are using allows users to engage with each easily (for example mobile, PC, Play Station, Nintendo, etc.) Some examples are Call of Duty, Fortnite, and League of Legends; players can play on their PC, their mobile, and other gaming devices.
Play & Watch
A big part of eSports culture is players being able to watch others play and vise versa. Gamers use social platforms like Twitch to watch other gamers play and learn about games.
Accessibility
Mobile gaming makes it easy for anyone to play at any time and anywhere. Animal Crossing is an example of this as the game has become more widely popular during the outbreak of Covid-19. Users can carry around Nintendo Switch wherever they go. Users of all ages can play this game as well.
After the kickoff event, we also looked at different mobile apps that already existed in the market. From there, we discussed why we liked certain parts of the apps and what we thought could improve from the user’s point of view. Some of the apps that we looked into for our research were GamerLink, GameTree, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Monument Valley, and more. As we were looking at different kinds of designs, we noticed that a lot of the colors that were used were bright, colorful, and fun.
Moodboard:
Branding Concept
For our design concept, we went with the a minimalistic styles to avoid users from being overwhelmed when they start using PlayPal. According to Medium, this concept allows users to concentrate more on the functions and the features of the app.
Logo
The minimalistic style logo represents the concept of community. The logo has also been used in the global navigation bar as an icon for the community pages.
Color
As a team, we decided to mostly use pastel colors to make users engaged and be easier for users to find what they need.
Image from leilykhatibi.com
Typography
Icons
Prototype
Retrospective
I learned how important communication is, especially with a tight deadline. As a team, it was key that we were organized and set mini-deadlines for ourselves and meetings to make sure we were on track and would be able to finish the project before we had to turn in our project.
* Out of 200+ projects, PlayPal placed 16th in the competition and received an honorable mention for placing in the top 20.