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Registration Process

To enhance the New User Retention Rate for Smeet, the whole Registration Process was reassessed.

Overview

Role
User Experience and User Interface

Genre
Social Game

Engine
In-House Engine

Tools
Photoshop, Illustrator

Team Size: 1

Duration
2021 – 2023

Platform
PC, Web Browser, Android,
macOS, iOS

Background

Smeet is a social game where players connect through customizable avatars, creative spaces like individual rooms, and challenges.

The current registration process already offers players their first chance to express individuality by choosing names and avatars.
A strong first impression after downloading the game is vital, but up to this point, the First-Time User Experience was partly suboptimal and outdated. The unclear navigation and visually unengaging screens might be hindering a smooth onboarding process.

Goals

When redesigning the registration process, several key goals should be prioritized. First, simplifying the registration flow is essential to reduce friction and make it quick and easy for new players to get started. By showcasing self-expression and creativity early on, the process ensures that new users feel welcome and inspired to explore the game further. A new feature has been added, allowing users to choose their starting home (room), which enhances personalization and adds to the sense of ownership in the game.

Customizing avatars and selecting a personal starting home fosters a deeper connection between the player and the game world, capturing their attention and setting the tone for their journey. Finally, optimizing for speed, clarity, and ease of use is crucial to minimize the number of users who abandon the registration process, ensuring they are guided seamlessly into the game experience.

Challenges

The focus is ensuring clarity and simplicity. All prices, conversion rates, and package benefits must be clearly presented to ensure an intuitive purchasing process, from selection to check out.
Upselling opportunities should be designed with the user in mind, ensuring transparency and trust, while also aligning with the necessary monetization goals.

The limitations set by partnering payment providers and the outdated engine present technical constraints. So it requires some ingenuity when it comes to a seamless implementation of the new coin shop features while simultaneously ensuring the continued functionality of the existing system.

Original

Reworked

Mockups

Final Product

Roles and responsibilities

Research and Data Analysis

Besides personas, surveys, analyzing competitors and analyzing the current user behavior, the coins shop required an in-depth research on monetization models and prizing strategies. Especially information about what price points tend to drive the most purchases or which discounts are most effective, informed some upcoming design decisions.

UX Design

The redesigned coin shop introduces features for premium members, offering the ability to purchase limited-edition items, resources, and special advantages in challenges. The shop’s offerings are dynamically tailored, showcasing more appealing and relevant deals for different types of players. This includes a revamped selection of bundles, featuring, e.g., unique items or currency packs. The new pricing strategy for these bundles is designed to provide greater value for users and to enhance the purchasing experience.

UI Design

I translated UX requirements and prototypes into visually engaging and functional UI elements, ensuring a smooth transition from concept to execution. Within that process, I prioritized creating an intuitive and accessible interface, designed to accommodate players of all experience levels, ensuring an inclusive and enjoyable experience for everyone.

To facilitate future scalability, I developed reusable components that simplified updates and ensured consistency across the design.

Key Takeaways

Monetization Balance

Ensuring a balance between monetization goals and the user experience can be tricky. In-game purchases are supposed to be enticing, but not coercive.

The project started out as a UI adjustment, but soon raised questions about the current flow/user journey concerning acquiring coins.
We needed to provide players with more direct non-monetary ways to earn rewards, making the shop feel optional but rewarding.

 

Achievements

Empathizing

Clearly displaying benefits and currency value helped build trust and credibility with players, ensuring transparency in the purchasing process. These more ethical monetization strategies were able to make players feel valued, rather than exploited.

This approach can promote long-term loyalty and encourages a positive relationship between the game and its players.

Variety

Having more individual offers that are tailored to different kinds of user was making sure that every player could find a fitting suggestion.

Vanessa Hoffmann

Travel

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