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PANTHEON: RISE OF THE FALLEN
This was a speculative project for Visionary Realms. Pantheon is a Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG) currently in development. A small but growing team, their focus has been on developing the game and not their website. Their forums needed an overhaul to match the standards of the rest of the game, so I tackled the problem for them. Additionally, I gave their landing page a refresh.
Problems
For a multi-million dollar, next gen, online game, their web-presence does not match their in-game assets.
Community engagement goes a long way towards building hype for a successful game launch. Their forum falls short of it's contemporaries in inviting this behavior.
Solution
Heavy market research before overhauling the landing page and forum.
My focus on the landing page was to improve CTAs, encourage users to explore further, and strengthen overall visual impact.
In addition to a visual overhaul of the forum, my primary focus was on features designed to encourage use and community interaction.
People are attached to their forums of choice and often base the forums they use on what game they play. They’re looking for the community around their game of choice over larger forums. Larger forums are great at readability but lack some of the social interaction gamers enjoy.
I wanted to bring the big forum visual strength to a smaller community environment. The little guys deserve good user experience as well.
Objective
Give the Pantheon website Landing Page and Forums an update.
For my research I conducted secondary research, user surveys, competitive analyses, and a site audit of the current site.
Research uncovered a challenge right away in that forum users want to find relevant information quickly and feel like part of a community. However, this means something different to different people.
Primary research showed that 92% of forum visitors use forums for learning, while only 75% of visitors use them for entertainment.
"A key advantage traditional forums have over their modern social counterparts is the ability to find information."
During my research I uncovered four primary user types across two different spectrums.
Healthy forums I encountered during my research all catered to multiple user types by utilizing a wide variety of features. So defining these user types was a top priority for me.
Defining the user types led to compiling a feature list to meet the needs and wants of the different users.
The design stage of my process consisted primarily of wireframing.
With the number of features I was looking to implement into the design, wireframing felt like an advanced game of Tetris. Fitting together all the pieces and creating the right visual hierarchy was a challenge.
LO-FIDELITY
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HI-FIDELITY
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Overall, user tests on the prototype were extremely positive. Readability was very high, and users were able to find and recognize common features very quickly. More "unique" features were all positively received and considered "improvements" to other forums.
Usability testing on the prototype turned up two potential issues that would require more testing.
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Issue: The mark read/unread feature seen above was difficult for people to find, but users agreed that it was likely a highly learnable feature due to the changing graphic and pop up.
Solution: One change I made to help recognizability for new users was moving the icon from the end of the subject line to a single column in front of all the subjects. This is a common place for checkboxes of lists.
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Issue: The list view and card view feature was also largely missed by users when exploring features. This was partially due to the testers not being accustomed to having the option to change the way content is displayed in forums.
Solution: I changed the menu label from "view" to "list view" or "card view" to help better indicate the current state.
For my research I conducted secondary research, user surveys, competitive analyses, and a site audit of the current site.
Research uncovered a challenge right away in that forum users want to find relevant information quickly and feel like part of a community. However, this means something different to different people.
Primary research showed that 92% of forum visitors use forums for learning, while only 75% of visitors use them for entertainment.
"A key advantage traditional forums have over their modern social counterparts is the ability to find information."
During my research I uncovered four primary user types across two different spectrums.
Healthy forums I encountered during my research all catered to multiple user types by utilizing a wide variety of features. So defining these user types was a top priority for me.
Defining the user types led to compiling a feature list to meet the needs and wants of the different users.
The design stage of my process consisted primarily of wireframing.
With the number of features I was looking to implement into the design, wireframing felt like an advanced game of Tetris. Fitting together all the pieces and creating the right visual hierarchy was a challenge.
Overall, user tests on the prototype were extremely positive. Readability was very high, and users were able to find and recognize common features very quickly. More "unique" features were all positively received and considered "improvements" to other forums.
Usability testing on the prototype turned up two potential issues that would require more testing.
Issue: The mark read/unread feature seen above was difficult for people to find, but users agreed that it was likely a highly learnable feature due to the changing graphic and pop up. Solution: One change I made to help recognizability for new users was moving the icon from the end of the subject line to a single column in front of all the subjects. This is a common place for checkboxes of lists.
Issue: The list view and card view feature was also largely missed by users when exploring features. This was partially due to the testers not being accustomed to having the option to change the way content is displayed in forums. Solution: I changed the menu label from "view" to "list view" or "card view" to help better indicate the current state.
This was a fun project for me as a member of this community and it surprised me with how much research it ended up involving.
I was constantly evaluating the value of features and where/when to display them. Visual real estate in a content driven product is important and adding interactive social elements alongside content was a challenge. I found many different types of users throughout my research. Creating a final design that worked for all of them was a challenge I think I met.
With more time and access to website data, I would track how much certain features are being used and make adjustments from there. I would introduce a light mode for the forum as well.
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