Big Fish Games
As UX Design Manager, I spearheaded a team of UX/UI, Marketing Designers, Writers and Content Strategists within the Product team. We were responsible for every new product, feature, conversion performance and overall experience of the Big Fish Games Web Site distribution portal, Game Manager Desktop Client, Big Fish Games App and Big Fish Unlimited Instant Games Service. A few of the Product highlights include:
Big Fish Web Site
During my time at Big Fish Games, over 2 billion games in 13 supported languages were distributed on the Big Fish Games Site. Iterative enhancements and new features to the home of “A New Game Everyday!®” included Mobile Optimized Pages, a consistent unified global site navigation, robust filtering and faceted enabled category pages and conversion optimized product pages.
Web Site Opportunity
After selling downloadable games for 10 years, Big Fish needed to prepare for the next decade and unify many parts of the experience and conversion process that had become fractured over time.
Site Experience unification was a not a single project, but a company goal to grow revenue through a better experience including a simper, streamlined look and feel, consistent functionality and a clear set of product offerings for increased conversion.
Web Site Research & Design Process
To keep ahead in a dynamic and changing industry, prior research was re-evaluated and updated: Customer Interviews, User Personas, Field (In Person) Visits, Usability & Beta Testing, Surveys, Monitor Conversion Rates, Other Daily Key Performance Indicators, Customer Support Levels and Feedback and Competitive Analysis.
To help align stakeholders, “Flash Forward” ideal experience vision pieces of what could be up to a year out were created. Individual feature releases and priority were based on business need and value to the customer from these ideally envisioned experiences.
To scale value to users and the business, old frameworks and approaches were updated with a pattern library based on HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery. An extensive optimization of the game asset inventory was conducted to reduce the over two dozen image sizes per title.
Each wireframe, user flow, color spec or visual comp worked toward global alignment, experience unification and conversion optimization.
Web Site Delivery
Mobile Optimized Pages
Site Header and Navigation
Site Category and Product Pages
As features were released, Key Performance Indicators were closely monitored. In one example, a key feature resulted in greatly increasing organic search due to the new design. Another major release drove key conversion metrics up and more importantly to the stakeholders, did not divert traffic or negatively impact other measures.
As the Big Fish site entered the next decade, it was well positioned to continue distributing over a million games per day, continue adding to the 13 consecutive years of record revenue growth leading and eventual acquisition.
Big Fish Games App
Big Fish Games App (Game Finder) was an iPhone and iPad game discovery app for the entire Big Fish catalog. Features of of the app included: A New Game Every Day!®, Daily Deal, Updates on Top Games and a free Collector’s Edition Game.
Games App Research & Design Process
The goal of the Big Fish Games App was two-fold: 1) Provide customers and easy way to browse the full catalog of games on their iOS devices and 2) Increase customer acquisition by having a free, highly ranked app in the App Store.
To understand the greatest value to customers, we used qualitative and qualitative approaches: Conducting Constant Competitive Analysis, In Person Lab Usability Testing, App Store Customer Reviews, Ratings and Feedback and closely monitor Key Performance Metrics.
The Big Fish Games App user flows feature documentation made extensive use of wireframes. Embracing a just in time delivery model with quick iterations, the developers often considered wireframes the final design deliverable. Higher fidelity comps were created for assessing more radical departures and
The App design process made extensive use of prototypes. A PDF prototyping system was used very early on to help the team visualize the experience. Complex interactions and transitions were collaborated on with functional prototypes using tools like proto.io.
Prototypes became useful for Stakeholder and Executive Reviews, Ad hoc, Lab and Remote Usability Testing, Functional and Visual Specs for QA and Scoping a vision into discrete deliverable feature.
Games App Delivery
Originally called Game Finder, The Big Fish Games App underwent a series of design and development overhauls while leveraging native, web and hybrid frameworks. Key feature iterations included Improved Search functionality, Exclusive special promotions, Tightly integrated and in-depth Strategy Guides for newer titles and access to a fully free and unlocked Collector’s Edition Game.
Shortly after launch, the Big Fish Games App regularly saw 80,000 DAU – Daily Active Users, over 5,000 installs per day and led the category with an average App Store rating of 4.5 stars with over 9,000 ratings.
Big Fish Unlimited - Streaming Service
Streaming Service Opportunity
The idea was simple – build Netflix for Casual Games.
Big Fish Unlimited was an instant games service - all powered by streaming with no game downloads - across PCs, Android tablets, Android phones and Roku enabled TVs.
As UX Design Manager, I spearheaded a team of UX/UI and Marketing Designers within the Product arm of the organization. We were responsible for the launch, growing the service and overall experience of of the Big Fish Unlimited service.
Streaming Service Research & Design Process
We asked: Are download and streaming (cloud) games just fundamentally different experiences? The business pivoted to leveraging the existing PC client distribution in a series of iterations while researching with focus groups, conducting competitive analysis (Gaikai and OnLive) and identifying market segments through remote testing.
Introducing cloud gaming as a download game distributor was an engineering, product and marketing challenge. Game streams are interactive, requiring back and forth communication and near real time updates to minimize lag. Understanding, mapping and communicating each of these states and conditions was key to the user experience
The paramount product concern was delivering a High Quality of Service - the ability to play a game with feeling like it was lagging and the experience degrading while playing over the cloud. A number of features and systems we optimized and iterated on to improve performance and user expectations including: Sign-Up Flows, Messaging Frameworks, Game Control Enhancements and Cross Device Experiences (games built originally for PCs but now being streamed on touch screens).
We applied the same rigor for game testing to testing the streaming experience. This included surveys, focus groups and in person usability testing in the Big Fish Games lab. Through testing and iteration, we were able improve the experience, finalize the service name, key imagery and product value proposition: Big Fish Unlimited – Seamlessly play across devices.
Streaming Service Product Delivery
Android Phone / Google Play
Web Browser on PC / Mac
Windows Surface Tablet
Roku Enabled TV
At Casual Connect Seattle, a flagship industry event for casual games, Big Fish Unlimited was announced - by live demoing and launching the service right from the stage. Within the span of year, Big Fish Unlimited Instant Games was available on 5 different platforms, rated over 4.5 stars with 1200 reviews and a spotlight on the Google Play store and provided access to over 300 streaming game titles.