UX in gaming has always intrigued me. It is one of how we interact with devices that are not nearly as studied or discussed. It’s certainly an area with unique challenges and unique solutions. Games create their own unique language, culture, and style and must convey that to various gamers. Gamers is a term often used as a demographic; however, it is a massive group of people with vying interests and wants. Some players are competitive, others are casual, some are intermediate, and others are “pro” or top-tier. Each has a different skill level and familiarity with competitive games and gaming. So some players will have a strong sense of expectations set by an industry standard. Now who sets that Industry standard? The most competitive games set that standard. In my research, I considered the UX of games like League of Legends, Fortnite, Super Smash Brothers, Overwatch, and Valorant. There are many other games to research that significantly influence user expectation; however, for the sake of the timeline, I thought I would hit games that either shared a lot in common with the game or were heavy hitters in the niche.
After I finished, I posted the project on the DKO subreddit. The project got overall very strong reviews with a lot of community interaction, which surprised me as this community mainly discusses gameplay and the characters they hate the most.
To my surprise, the community took the time to review my audit and largely agreed with my changes. From my perspective, some of the disagreements would be resolved with wireframes (something I have not done at this stage). The worst feedback I received was the lack of clarity in my audit when using mobile. I resolved this within a few hours, but it likely cost me valuable feedback.
The below images are the same images I shared with both Reddit and Hi-Rez studios. I hope you enjoy them!
I enjoyed working on this. It was a challenge, and it felt very rewarding to receive it so positively by the community.