- CLIENT: Microsoft
- RDX Platform
- Conceptual Design
- User Research
- Personas & User Flows
- Information Architecture
- Heuristic Assessment
- Wireframing
- Rapid Prototyping
- User Testing
- Style Guide & Hi-Fi Comps
- Rapid Prototyping
- Front End Development
- Delivery and Integration Support
Overview
Over the last few years, there has been a push to increase PC gaming on Windows. Steam has been a major player in that area and with the Retail Demo Experience, retailers would like to leverage that interest to move higher powered PC gaming devices. To that end, I opened conversations with Steam to create content for PC gaming capable machines to show off some of the amazing experiences that can be had. I determined that some additional research was required to best present the way to show how games can be played and I coordinated with Userzoom to conduct that research and find the best path forward.
Problems
& Opportunities
Projected to be worth over 90 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, the video game market is an important revenue stream. After taking a backseat to Xbox, this is a deep dive into finding out the best way to present PC Gaming within RDX. Traditionally, the entry point to pc gaming has been Steam. How can PC gaming be a larger part of the pie, and how can RDX leverage with retailers the best way to push exemplary hardware to run games that deliver experiences that consoles cannot? These and more questions were answered throughout this experience.
Roles & Responsibilities
I was the embedded UX | UI Product designer, and I worked with a great team that included marketing, developers, external groups at Valve and Userzoom to bring this to light. As the sole designer on the project, it was my pleasure to work with marketing management, stakeholders and the dev team to bring this to light. Because the PC gaming was designed as modular addition to the existing RDX technology stack, it was easy to integrate into the next build of RDX while still supporting the current framework. On the technology side, this was one of my major goals - to design this product in such a way that makes integration easy and straightforward. Providing solutions for developers, and stakeholders ensures we're all on the same side as we give these solutions to customers, whether retail giants or everyday people upgrading their machines.
It was important to determine the differences between the games and the hardware they require to help marketing lanes advertise the appropriate hardware to run games optimally.
Gamers come from may different walks of life, and it's an activity that has the opportunity to draw people together. I subdivided potential consumers into a few broad categories.
Running a/b tests of content, hardware, and the types of messaging to be conveyed to resonate deeply with consumers.
Process
& what I did
I built over 17 prototypes for this, after conducting research, culminating in three testing scenarios with over 600+ users.
View Prototypes
I conducted user testing the people at userzoom.com to put together several rounds of user testing with the participants to gather together both qualitative and quantitative data. Valve also contributed their own data findings, which was incredible. I then used this data to present findings to leadership, stakeholders, and key partners to develop campaigns to move forwarding with marketing.
VR & Next-Gen Systems
Building out engaging content was the next step once pathing has been setup for deterministic product categories. VR is one such category, and one that holds a lead over console gaming. Incredible experiences from Elite Dangerous to Doom are available in immersive VR. With Augmented Reality on the horizon, PC gaming rigs provide the horsepower to run next-gen experiences.
User testing
results & direction
I coordinated, designed tests, both qualitative and quantitative, and worked with the people at userzoom.com to get data about different prototypes and builds. It was interesting to see expectations challenged and what was useful versus extraneous. I think my favorite part was seeing how people from all demographics interacted and viewed content. One point that sticks out that some consumers buying hardware typically reserved for PC gaming is creatives, where having a PC that is very quick both in processing and rendering is a tremendous advantage and a revenue stream that Microsoft is now taking advantage of with the surface line.
Final Products
Based on the excellent feedback, I was able to build out marketing campaigns that resonated with consumers for all types of games, from the casual fun of Rocket League to intense sessions of Prey.
Chad Rawlinson
Product Designer
Retail Demo Experience, Microsoft
FINAL THOUGHTS
"I met some amazing people on this project across the various orgs at Microsoft, Valve, & Userzoom and with the interesting and compelling people that gave such valuable feedback that goes forward into staking out a claim for PC gaming and providing the ultimate platform for gaming. New PC gaming campaigns were rolled out on the RDX platform in time for the 2018 holiday schedule."