Role
UX Designer
Year
2023-2024
Programs
Figma, Adobe CC, Jira
The Sandbox / UX / UI
NFT Abilities
NFT Abilities
NFT Abilities was my first and biggest project. There were much discussion in regards to gamedesign and understanding exactly what abilities were, so we could create a proper design.
The start of a project - Requirement estimation
The project started out with a lot of understanding. How does NFTs work? What're abilities? How many can be equipped? Etc.
The start was a lot of work together with the GameDesigners and developers, estimating and creating mockups, wireframes and following changing gamedesign documents
While waiting for the GameDesigners, I set up internal playtests, to understand how users would handle my designs, and how the feature would be seen. This created many questions for the inventory itself, which I brought up as the project went on.
Later on this was expanded to external playtests.
I also did benchmarking, and wrote down how other games handled it, together with creating priorities to ensure a smooth project.
Problems, hypothesis and a lack of surveys
Based on the earlier research, I hypothesized that we would need a seperate page for abilities, such as a collection page, or an information page. We should only show minimal info about abilities and controls on the hud and possibly in the inventory.
I had prepared a survey that wasn't sent out before my last week at the company. Unfortunately due to other priorities, it was decided to cram all abilities and info into the inventory page, with a minor addition on the HUD. for the iteration I was working on.
Therefore I stopped working more on the collection pages and ideas for showcasing info with less text. My hypothesis would later be proven.
Methods used in the survey were
- Card sorting
- Questionnaires
- A/B testing
- Five second testing
- Internal user interviews
- Internal Usability testing
Early wireframes
I started out with wireframes and quick sketches, this was to nail down the flow.
When the project started out, there were still many uncertainties about the requirements, but as time passed and more thought was put in, we ended with final wireframes that would turn into proper prototypes.
These prototypes were then shown to product owners and had details fixed as times went on. At this time the progress was very confusing, and I had to explain how the ability worked to many people in the company. This is where I started questioning the process and started working out a new one.
The abilities and requirements were changed over time, and given different names and specifications. On the left there are examples of how the User could interact with both a collection page and upgrade the abilities by fusing items. Neither of these were decided to be in scope for 2024.
To do the PoC I created a Unity prototype with basic interactability. I am still awaiting permission to share this.
First iteration
Inventory
After the work on the design, it was time to polish, and create different flows, to ensure a lack of bugs and user understandings. We wanted to make sure the feature worked as easily as possible for the users, using the same design language as our other pages - So I also created a icon library for the abilities.
We took away the stats for this, as it was deemed unnecesary by the game designers. These were supposed to be replaced by abilities.
Abilities on the HUD
Of course the inventory isn't enough, and the user needs to know their abilities from Ingame. We agreed to go against a hotbar, due to the HUD being very crowded with the Rules project.
I was at this point joined by 2 new UI designers, and together we worked on getting the HUD approved. I made the initial designs, which were taken over by a colleague later.
First integration
The first iteration was done, and it was time to integrate. We got a hold of the developers, which we had also talked with during the project, to ensure that the project would be possible. They started implementation via the atlas, and we had syncs a couple of times a week to ensure that the implementation followed the design requirements.
In a last gong-ho decision, it was decided to reinclude stats, these might not be ingame when you play it, as it was still in discussion when I left.
The bottom right here is how it's supposed to end up, while the top is the current implementation.
Atlas
The Atlas is what we named the gathering of components. It's very important for Unity to have the components in multiple and proper sizes due to the lack of SVG support.
When I arrived I started implementing the 8pt system, and it has been used ever since. Here's an example of an Atlas.
Proving the hypothesis for the future
Due to company restrutcturing, it was very hard to get a survey out. In my last days at the company, I was finally able to get answers from the survey I had created regarding the abilities/inventory.
My hypothesis of having too much info on one page, and needing to split it up while not needing too much ability information in the inventory was proven correct.
In the survey 20/37 found it confusing to have the abilities in the inventory and having a seperate possibility of interacting with the abilities. Unfortunately this was very far away from when the project started, and will have to be addressed in the future. I left the company with a redesign of the inventory, together with my early wireframes and ideas for tackling the issue.
