"The role of UI is to guide players through the game and direct attention to the most relevant information with on screen assets."
- Rovio (Developers of Angry Birds 2)
Project Duration | Team Members | Tools Used | My Roles |
12 Weeks Dec '22 - Mar '23 | Taylor Rodriguez UI/UX Designer | Adobe Xd Adobe Photoshop Google Forms Trello | User Research UX/UI Design Graphic Design |
PROBLEM -
Due to the expanding library of mobile games, ineffective UI can lead people off of your game. According to Statista, mobile games are projected to generate approximately 92.2 billion U.S. dollars in annual revenue, surpassing the long-time dominate console games.
With that said, despite Angry Birds 2 achieving almost 67 million monthly active users (January 2018) and reaching global success after the debut title, frustration developed amongst gamers after the release of the sequel due to...
Frequent pop-ups
Lack of intuitive features
Overwhelming main menu
Distracting animations
Gameplay mechanics
This has led to a consistent drop of active users...
SOLUTION & HYPOTHESIS -
A simplified, user-friendly main menu had to be designed. An effective UI redesign of the main menu as well as secondary menus would increase play session times, overall player retention, and as a result-increase exposure to necessary advertisements from company partners, generating more revenue for Rovio Entertainment.
KEY FOCUS -
Making the main mission the primary focus - Users had trouble navigating the main menu to find the main story. We will reintroduce from Angry Birds 1, the main "PLAY!" button that sits front and center of the user's mobile device. This will allow them to immediately hop into a game without frustration of wondering where the levels are. Currently, the main mission button sits in the top right corner of the screen without text to properly identify what the destination of that button is.
Remove distracting alert notifications - Currently, a red exclamation point bounces up and down in a continuous animation to grab the user's attention to a particular menu that needs attention. Traditionally, this is acceptable to most users but with several buttons/sections being directly on the homepage, upon loading the game for the first time in the day, it's very overwhelming seeing a dozen plus animations happening all at once.
Increasing whitespace and improving overall hierarchy - By consolidating several buttons and animations, this will increase whitespace between said items and make the design more "breathable." Also, we will be improving overall button hierarchy to aid in the user flow and potentially increase playtime due to this change.
OUR PROCESS -
TARGET AUDIENCE
Gender | Age |
Found conflicting reports. Most studies reveal 18-44 year olds make up majority of audience with reports split whether 18-24 or 35-44 is the larger audience. |
50% of user surveys came from 35-44 year old's with the majority being self-called "casual gamers."
Playtime was split 50/50 between Apple and Android smartphones.
0% of participants were interested with in-game purchases or upgrades.
USER RESEARCH
Casual Gamer Perspective | Devoted Gamer Perspective | Competitive Gamer Perspective |
"Prefer older Angry Bird games" "Would recommend game to friends and family" | "Reduction in pop-ups would be only change" "Text bubbles were difficult to read" | "Wouldn't mind spending $21-$30 for ad-free mobile game" "Felt rewarded for my efforts" |
83% of participants noted that they had to learn particular aspects of the game by trial and error.
66.7% favored free to play mobile games that included in-game ads, but would not continue to play AB2 after study concluded.
DISCOVERY
As gaming experience increased, complexity of interfaces were more widely acceptable. This may be due to competitive gamers being familiar with interfaces with several key elements being left on screen (Apex Legends, League of Legends, etc). With Angry Birds 2 falling into the more casual gamer experience, their audience may benefit from less on screen elements to reduce frustration. Also, with almost 67% of total surveys revealing how users would not continue to play AB2, this became an alarming statistic.
USER FLOWS & WIREFRAMES -
Currently, upon loading the game, players are met with 2 pop ups before proceeding to the main menu. After reaching the main menu, the player then needs to navigate to the main story area of the game (accessed by a stylish button at the top right corner of the screen). This introduces a beautiful animation that loads the level/map layout screen where players can choose which level to play or purchase upgrades before proceeding to the level. After clicking the "play" button, you're sent to the level screen where once again, you're met with another pop-up to ask you if you'd like to get any additional upgrades to improve your chances at completing the level. From launch screen to beginning of a level playthrough, on average, there are 4-5 finger presses or "user clicks." This is without choosing any upgrades.
Current User Journey - Angry Birds 2
Moving forward, the proposed user journey would eliminate back to back pop-ups upon launching of the game while providing desired upgrades inside the store (with gems and pearls) as opposed to being an additional pop-up that the user would have to click off of. This automatically would reduce total clicks by 1-3, reducing player fatigue/frustration, and increase moral due to being able to access the story mode faster.
We understand the economic importance for sponsored ads and suggest to keep them housed inside of sub-menus (similar to the current Settings and Pause menu) or at the very least, keep them to 15 seconds vs 30 seconds and/or eliminate back to back pop-ups to decrease player frustration.
Proposed User Journey - Angry Birds 2
Original Wireframe Concept
*notes appear offscreen
Final Wireframe Concept
*notes appear offscreen
FINAL PROTOTYPE -
*tap play button to view demo
CURRENT MAIN MENU UI aka "BEFORE"
PROPOSED MAIN MENU UI aka "AFTER"
VARIOUS PROTOTYPE SCREENS
OTHER DISCOVERIES
As difficulty with the game increased due to players advancing levels, the 5 live/heart limit that has been established with AB2 was seen to be used up rather quickly which would turn away players as lives (or hearts) would generate several hours apart from one another. This would ultimately result in a drop off of players. A few gameplay mechanics such as these I would recommend consulting over as it was brought to my attention during interviews with frustrated users which may have resulted in the statistic with 66.7% not desiring to play the game after the research period had ended.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
FINAL THOUGHTS -
During this process, I truly learned the importance of organization while learning how to work with participants in user surveys and interviews. After a decade plus as a Graphic Designer, I never would've guessed how much I would fall in love with getting out into the community and discovering more about user habits and picking the brains of fellow gamers. This has caused me to look into reading more about human psychology and figuring out how I could advance my user research skills.
The other big discover I had was realizing how satisfied I felt while created the buttons for the UI. It caused me to brush up on my Photoshop skills and it reminded me just how much I loved Photoshop in college. Granted, I did NOT create these buttons from scratch, full credit should go to the designers at Rovio, however, some of the assets were not readily available so recreation was needed for some.
Overall, with the data that was collected by gamers, I still hold my original hypothesis that this would create higher player retention, total playtime, and increased ad revenue for Rovio. In gaming, unless a usable prototype is available for gamers to experience and get their hands on, which requires the help of programmers, gathering reliable data to compare interfaces is too unpredictable. However, with the user surveys and follow up interviews collected, majority of participants did approve of the concepts we created with the casual gamer demographic taking the larger percentage of that vote.
Finally, THANK YOU to the team over at Rovio for creating such a fun and entertaining game. Throughout this process, I was truly worried over how this case study would be perceived. The designers over at Rovio are full of talent and at the end of the day, we have no idea what guidelines they were given to create the Angry Birds 2 game. All we can do is ask questions, make helpful suggestions and enjoy the heck out of the games that get developed. No game is perfect and the overall game creation process, as rewarding as it is, can be truly stressful; so lets make it a habit to applaud developers and designers in the game industry more often!
I'm very excited to see the next game I get the chance to work on...
PEACE OUT!
Thanks for playing. See you online :)
Gamer Tag: @CoachTaz526