Thunder: Throne Wars
The Thunder: Throne Wars Interface Redesign project aims at revamping the user experience, making it more appealing to potential gamers. Stakeholders are actively engaged in the decision making process through phases of ethnographic research, concept development, and implementation. The approach ensures a final product that provides both gameplay immersion and usability.
Tools and Skills:
- User-centred design (UCD) process
- Adobe Photoshop - Concept art editing
- Adobe Illustrator — Create graphic elements
- Figma - Brainstorming and prototyping
Initial Research
Stakeholder Research
To get to know our stakeholders better, I set up a meeting with IMU Studios' development team to get to know their roles in the team and their vision for the game Thunder: Throne Wars.
Ethnographic Research
I learned about the current design stage, unique features of the game, and the challenges the team was facing through Q&As and a recorded interview with the game designer and founder of the game.
Personas
Using the data collected from the initial research, I developed three personas, each with a different personality, goal, motivation, and pain point. They help with narrowing down the direction I am taking for the design.
Participatory Workshop
I conducted a participatory design workshop with stockholders to begin focusing down to specific areas of my design focus, which allows them to dig into how they see these areas of focus and what issues and opportunities might exist there.
There were three activities conducted during the workshop: User journey review and co-creation, colour palette creation, and style guide elements.
With the findings from the workshop, two user journey maps were created.
Final Design Concept
The final design concept focuses on the stages a gamer goes through when they launch the game for the first time after downloading it. The first impression is particularly important to help attract players as well as help our stakeholders move the game development to the next stage.
Final Prototype
With a finalized design concept, I carefully constructed the interface prototype with vector elements I created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator as well as concept arts from the previous game artists. The result is an interface with pleasing visuals that aligns with the theme of the game, while being easy to navigate and easy to use. The IMU Studios' development team was very with the results.
Final Products:
