Developing a Communication System to Elevate Engagement
Aimlab, a popular aim training simulator, faced a challenge: players had to leave the app to communicate and share scores on other platforms, decreasing app engagement and harming retention. With my team, I researched and designed an in-app communication system, enabling seamless player engagement throughout the entire user journey. This user-focused solution led to thousands of one-on-one interactions within the first month of launch and allowed us to expand our offerings to multiplayer capabilities.
Industry
Gaming
Company size
100+
My Role
Principle
Product Designer
Tools Used
Figma
Miro
Duration
2 months
Challenge
Players of Aimlab want to share their scores and interact with their community without having to leave the app. Players had to exit the app and utilize third party apps such as Twitter or Reddit to show off their achievements. How do we allow users to engage with one another so that they can learn and share directly with their community within the game?
Results
By utilizing a user focused approach, the new interface proved widely successful. This gartered thousands of 1v1 interactions within its first month of launch. It has also proven to be foundational to future communication features for Aimlab. Multiplayer has been a point of conversation for some time, and this implantation is the first of many iterations in the future.
40%
DAU and MAU
50%
Increase in user engagment
Joe Siconolfi
Ex Head of Design at Statespace Labs
Connecting with User Experiences
To start, I conducted a survey of our current users to gain a clear understanding of the current landscape. I aimed to uncover how users feel about our product and identify any pain points or frustrations they experience.
Alex Thompson
Goals
Looking to collaborate with like-minded individuals while enhancing their skills, participate in team-based tournaments, and increase their chances of success.
Frustrations
Feels as though their talent and dedication often go unnoticed due to the highly competitive nature of the industry.
Struggles to find resources and to help them analyze their gameplay
Brad Davis
Goals
Deepen understanding of video games and gaming culture.
Doesn’t aspire to become a pro, but wants to improve their gameplay performance
Frustrations
Struggles to find time to explore and learn leading to a sense of being left behind
Limited understanding of video games mechanics, genres and terminology
Jordan Taylor
Junior Graphic Desiner
Age: 25
Yearly Salary: 50k - 75k per year
Goals
Although they may not have a lot of disposable income, they are willing to invest in brands that speak to causes they care about.
Frustrations
They often struggle to find jewelry that reflects their gender identity and preferences.
Motivations
They want to invest in a brand that mirrors them and their community. Many jewelry brands only showcase a straight white and cis-gendered demographic and separate their jewelry by gender. Jordan wants to see a brand that celebrates them and their community.
Feel
Uninspired, ignored
Think
More brands should embrace inclusiveness.
Do
Saves for a big purchase.
Say
I want jewelry that reflects my identity.
Cynthia Ledner
Goals
Build a supportive and inclusive gaming community of fellow female gamers.
Challenge stereotypes and help create an environment where female gamers feel comfortable, respected, and celebrated.
Frustrations
Lack of female representation in the gaming community
Encountered instances of harassment and misogyny while gaming online.
From this research we've discovered that gamers need to engage with community because...
Displaying their scores to fellow gamers serves as a source of motivation and a sense of responsibility to enhance their performance.
Interacting with fellow players offers users the opportunity to learn from others' triumphs and errors, thereby improving their own skills.
Players are able to create bonds with other players they’ve become accustomed to seeing on the leaderboards.
Decoding the Competition
Now that I’ve established our users, as well as their goals and frustrations, I can move on to conducting competitor analysis. In this competitive analysis, I’ll compare 3 different established platforms.
Platforms like Discord, Twitch, and Steam have set a high bar for user communication, offering seamless and engaging ways for players to connect with each other. Their success lies in creating intuitive, real-time communication systems that foster community, collaboration, and engagement. By analyzing their features—such as user-friendly chat interfaces, voice communication, and integrated social tools—I can gain valuable insights to enhance in-app communication within Aim Lab
Dischord is great for allowing users to create separate rooms for group chats while they are in game
Twitch shows a user's whole game history, should a user be interested in what other streams they have available.
Steam does their friend list well in how its always available during gameplay.
How do we streamline a way for users to engage with community so that they can successfully learn, communicate and excel at gaming within Aimlab?
Sparking Ideas into Reality
At this stage I take time to sketch out my ideas and visualize how the platform might work. I also plan out what buttons each element will have and its purpose.
Based on the insights gained, we identified the following opportunities for solution:
A friends list feature would allow players to form connections with others they frequently encounter on leaderboards, addressing the lack of social interaction and community building in competitive gameplay.
The ability to view a friend's status and scores, solving the problem of limited motivation and accountability by fostering friendly competition and encouraging players to improve their performance.
The ability to view your friend's game history feature that enables players to review past interactions and gameplay, addressing the need for skill development by allowing users to learn from others' successes and mistakes.
The Iterative Design Process
I had all the components in place for The Friends system. The challenge was to structure, tweak, and fine-tune them to align with the user’s experience goals.
At this point I began focusing on iterative play testing with users to identify preferences and pain points, refining each variation based on their feedback.
The layout is significantly different from the previous design. Not only were we designing a new feature, but we were giving the entire program a design overhaul for a more modern look. The flow doesn’t feel intuitive at first, and they had to keep asking questions figure out where certain features are now located, interrupting their experience
After gathering user feedback, the solution was to streamline the navigation and bring the most essential features (like friend search and invites) back to a more prominent, familiar position on the screen. Key buttons were resized and repositioned for better accessibility, and the design was simplified to reduce visual clutter
Overcomplicated UI
To combat this, we simplified the design to only focus on the MVP of the product. Before design we had come across other possible pain thresholds we wanted to consider. However, widening our scope proved to be the wrong answer as we made it difficult for our users to complete their goal. We redesigned the player profile to be simple and straight forward, replacing arbitrary icons with wording to be easily understood.
Some users expressed that they wished they could personalize their experience more. The design didn't allow for customization, leaving players feeling the list isn't reflective of their unique preferences. Users often appreciate having control over how their friends list is displayed, whether it’s grouping friends by game, activity, or priority.
The friends list initially resembled a simple list of names rather than a true representation of friendships. To improve this, we introduced some key enhancements. First, we separated pending friend requests from established connections, making the interface more organized and easier to navigate. Additionally, we allowed users to assign titles to their names, which could be earned based on their average performance in tasks. This feature received a very positive response, as it provided players with another way to showcase their progress and achievements.
User Journey
Visual Design
Below depicts the final designs that were developed and launched for Aimlab. Note the Social drop down which showcases the visible list of friends. Users can also add, remove and search for their friends. Once friends are added to their friends list, they can view their information in an overlay called the Mini Profile. There a user can view the latest task they played, their highest score, and click on a link to their steam account so that they can learn more about that specific player. Users can even view the last replay of a players last task to see how they played and compare their own gameplay.
home
training
custom
loadout
scores
coaching
store
3
4
PENDING
user name
elite supporter
SENT
CANCEL
user name
SENT
CANCEL
user name
aim lab intermediate
user name
CREAtor
user name
coach
user name
aim lab hero
(4)
social
FRIENDS
add friend
ROSEGOLDX0
no title
azzystyles
ADVANCED CREATOR
GRIDSHOT
cynthia
elite supporter
SPIDERSHOT
JONAH
AIM LAB INTERMEDIATE
JONAH
aim lab intermediate
silver 1
total plays: 1402
LAST TASK
MOTION SHOT
SCORE
123456
WEapon
123456
MODE
ULTIMATE
VIEW LAST rEPLAY
home
training
custom
loadout
scores
coaching
store
3
4
Impact and Final Thoughts
In its initial version, the new Friend System has successfully met user needs, enabling hundreds of thousands of one-versus-one interactions in its first month.
It has also to be proven to be foundational to future Social features for the game. Multiplayer has been a point of conversation for some time, and this implantation is the first of many iterations in the future.
Some UX take aways would be to be more mindful of color choices and systems in final designs. The biggest lessons I learned was how important it is to be intentional about color for certain buttons and actions taken. For example, some colors vibrate too much together making them harder to view and inaccessible to a portion of our audience, a lesson I learned from one of the design leads. At this point, as a team we were experimenting with a new design system, and to decipher how each new color was to be used (or not) so that the user can efficiently utilize our product.
In conclusion, this project not only laid the groundwork for future social features and multiplayer functionality but also emphasized the critical importance of intentionality in design. Through experimentation and collaboration, I gained a deeper understanding of how thoughtful color choices and design systems directly impact accessibility and usability. These lessons will continue to guide my approach to creating user-centered solutions that are both functional and inclusive.