Achievement Hunter

Duration: 4 months, 2014 | Role: Interaction design, User research

An xbox companion experience in the snap mode to help gamers track their achievements in real time on screen, search for help on any achievement and look at achievement they just unlock

01. Background: Why this project

Previously, viewing achievements of a game is a long journey

Gamers have to leave the game, go back xbox home, find the achievements app, find that game's achievements to see what they have unlocked and what they want to target next.

Creating a snap app of achievements enables gamers to complete the task without leaving the game

Xbox one provides a multitasking mode called snap which allows gamers to check out stuff without leaving their primary experience. Gamers can playing a game while watching TV. A snap mode of achievements will simply the flows.

02. UR: What are users' needs?

Recently unlocked achievements

Closest achievements to unlock

Progress in the past game session

03. Challenge: How do we balance needs?

At first, we want to use a history to tell gamers their progress and unlocked achievements in the past game session. Then we expolored a better way to show any progress increment on an achievement. Later on we simplified the model to just focus on unlocked and locked achievements.

Another challenge comes from convincing developers which is the right model. As developers had made an early version of the app with all achievements in one list. They were very reluctant to change anything.

04. Ideation: Different models explored

Section model

An latest unlocked session on the top to showcase the accomplishements

Tab Model

Locked achievements on the left while unlocked achievements on the right

Single list model

Unlocked achievements are on the top and users have to scroll up

Filter model

Users can filter down to unlocked and locked achievements

05. User testing: Tab model is the most preferred

A 6-participant testing was conducted and here are our findings:

Users preferred the Tab model and the Filter model, and did not understand the single list model.

When asked, users indicated that the most important Achievements information is: most recently unlocked achievements and achievements the user is close to unlocking.

In terms of ease of use, the tab model provides some distinct usability advantages, and quicker access to the information which is most important to users.

06. Final: how does it work

07.impact

%

Usage of achievement full screen app

Most frequently used xbox snap app

Patents filed