Objective

I was hired at Zynga to work on Boggle with Friends. Boggle with Friends was a licensed product by Hasbro and fell under the Words with Friends umbrella of Zynga.

 The goal was to update the UI to be more clear, add new features, and create a more robust player experience. Since Boggle was a live game, the team moved in small very deliberate steps to reach the end goal. 

My most significant contribution to the title was reworking the First Time User Experience (FTUE) System. The goal was to make the FTUE be shorter and use a learn through play experience. 

Competitive Analysis.

I played a ton of games to see how they handled the FTUEs. Researching the FTUE for Boggle also gave me the opportunity to explore games I thought had an excellent overall experience.

The games I enjoyed the most were the games that have a learn through play FTUE. I printed out the screenshots and taped them to a wall, so I could stand back and see the game as a whole. The games that I liked the most had FTUEs that were 98% game play and where not interrupted by informational dialogues. I used the prints to discussed with the game designer and get his opinion on the game FTUE's I had chosen. From there, I came up with a game plan of how the FTUE would shape up.

Observations

On the left is a sample of one of the wireframes that I designed. Since the game has been in production, this effort would be all about the interaction design.

Teaching the player how to slide their finger to spell words was a top priority. In previous user tests, we had noticed that people tend to hunt and peck the letters. This method works, but you will never get a high score. Sliding their finger to spell words was the first mechanic we wanted to teach.

Wire-framing Begins

I wanted to take the FUTE and make it shorter and more interactive. I created a set of wireframes that would focus on critical elements of play that we wanted to re-enforce. The wireframes were reviewed with stakeholders, revisions were made to the wireframes, and a test plan was formed.

User test using the interactive prototype

I used my wireframes as a point of reference for the concept artist to create the animations that would be used in the prototype. I laid out the prototype with inVision, and we scheduled the player test. This test was conducted at our San Francisco office by a facilitator reading a script that we had prepared for them. We were able to watch the test via a video confrance.

What we learned

The team learned that the new FTUE helped players get the game mechanics faster than with the old FTUE system. We found that using the high fidelity wireframes in the interactive Prototype was a win for us. The prototype looked enough like the live game, so it was not a distraction for the player when they were looking at the prototype on device.

I collected the feedback that I needed to make the final round of changes. Those changes where made based off of the feedback given at the user testing. I created a final version of the FTUE that is in the game today.

In Closing

I was the Ux designer for the Boggle with Friends reworks from 2017 to 2018. I worked very closely with the Project Managers, Engineering, and the Game Designer to come up with solutions that could be implemented without disrupting the live game. Some of the features I worked on helped increase Player VS Player matches, drive more power-up purchases, and helped cross-promote other Zynga games. After a year of my team working on Boggle it was decided by Zynga that the game was to be moved to a different team with in the company. My team was re distributed through Zynga on new games.