Given only 24 hours, our team of two designers, one data scientist, and two developers were tasked with creating a solution that must "Enhance interactions between gamers"

My Role: UX research, Design Strategy, UI
Team: Group, Hackathon          
Duration:  June 2023, 24 Hours
Tools: Figma, CSS, React app, Zeplin  Designed For: Apex Legends (Multiplatform)

The problem space

Introduction

As a group, we started by collecting background information to get better acquainted with the space itself. 

The Research 

Harassment while playing online video games

We found that a significant portion of gamers within the United Stated have experiences harassment while gaming at some point 

Effects of Moderator Visibility

We also found that after abusers were flagged by the system and users, their rate of harassment seemed to decrease significantly 

Targeted User

Using our research, we determined the ideal user to target for our solution and created a proto-persona 

Revised HMW

After reflecting upon our research in relation to the problem space and our overall task, we found an appropriate angle within the problem space through which we could effectively create a solution for our targeted user. 

"How might we decrease instances of harassment within gaming interactions In order to provide gamers with a safe, fun, and accessible environment

Creating a solution

Giving users agency

We decided to tackle this issue by empowering players, giving them the visual information to distinguish when and why players were previously banned, allowing them to preemptively mute players and minimize the risk of negative experiences. 

In-game mockups

We created several in-game mockups to show what our solution would look like in real-time 

Building on existing systems

EA already has a robust system for players to report players, leading to suspensions and bans. We decided to add to this existing ecosystem, further bolstering the use and efficacy of the existing report system 

Business outcomes

Player Retention 

Over a quarter of young gamers who experienced harassment in online multiplayer games quit specific games. A third of young gamers changed how they play, including not speaking in voice chat and altering their usernames. We hope through our solution this can be mitigated. 

Next Steps

A/B Testing

We are looking to conduct A/B testing among different groups of gamers in order to test the efficacy of the solution 

Implementation within Native EA app

We created a preliminary look into how this may be implemented into EA's native app as a next step. 

More Data

With more data related to user behaviours and tendencies, we would be able to tighten our solution and provide more value for users, allowing additional features to prevent harassment.