Roles
UX/UI Design
User Research
Visual Design
Prototyping
Overview
Designing a fully responsive application for a major online gaming platform for one of the largest off-track betting organizations in the world. The app is to allow for betting horse racing from the top tracks in the world.
The Solution
TRX App is an exciting platform for players of all beginner to intermediate players to have fun and feel confident playing.
The Problem
Users were struggling with understanding all the rules and stats presented by competitive gaming apps. They often felt overwhelmed with the decisions offered and found the betting process to complex.
The Process
The process is based upon gaining an explicit understanding of users, tasks, and environments; is driven and refined by user-centered evaluation; and addresses the whole user experience.
Using the Design Thinking Process
Design Thinking
Definition: The design thinking ideology asserts that a hands-on, user-centric approach to problem solving can lead to innovation, and innovation can lead to differentiation and a competitive advantage. This hands-on, user-centric approach is defined by the design thinking process and comprises 6 distinct phases, as defined and illustrated below.
Definition: The design thinking ideology asserts that a hands-on, user-centric approach to problem solving can lead to innovation, and innovation can lead to differentiation and a competitive advantage. This hands-on, user-centric approach is defined by the design thinking process and comprises 6 distinct phases, as defined and illustrated below.
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Discovery
During the discovery phase a competitive analysis, user survey, interviews and analysis were done in order to create the most user-centric experience possible by getting well balanced data.
Competitive Analysis
I wanted to start the discovery by getting a feel for what kind of options are available out there for this type of app. What do these different applications do well, what don’t they do well, and areas of opportunity that could be done or used to make this new application stand out. Two that I focused specifically on were TVG and Moovit.
TVG is an online horse betting platform only. While competitors have other options, TVG is a horse-purist. They still offer a great horse wagering experience.
Strengths
• Good welcome bonus
• Customers trust the reputation
• Lots of payment options
• Ability to see all bus lines
Weaknesses
• Too much information for some
• Confusing navigation features
• Not available on Android
A smaller yet popular app, however using Xpressbet potential customers will be unable to open Xpressbet accounts depending on how close they are to certain legal gambling locations.
Strengths
• Available live video module
• Calendar Sync for navigation to races
• Options to customize your bets
• 300 races to choose from
Weaknesses
• Challenging to navigate application
• Limited geographic availability
• No ability to save notifications
User Research
To learn more about our audience, a survey was conducted via Google Forms. This included experience in on-line gaming, preferences and demographics questions. A few surveys were then selected to be followed up by a user interviews, conducted over the phone.
User Surveys
A survey was created and presented to individuals spanning the target market demographic in order to find out more about their experiences.
Participants were asked questions about gaming, online usage, preferences and general demographic topic allowing for broader empathy for the users.
Participants were asked questions about gaming, online usage, preferences and general demographic topic allowing for broader empathy for the users.
44%
Confident
18%
Not Confident
Of the participants, 44% said they were very confident in their method of choosing the bus to ride. Yet, 18% were not confident.
The most common thing that people mentioned was "simple betting options", when asked what they look for in an on-line horse betting app.
User Interviews
A round of user interviews were performed by a variety of users in order to further gain some qualitative insights direct and in their own words. Below are some of the more prominent finding that were shared during the interviews.
The findings
• Unexpected delays and route changes is the largest concern
• Some individuals prefer Google Maps for bus timing
• A pain point for this is that they found the layout confusing
• Prefer a simple map asking them “where would they like to go?”
• Unsure if they’re taking the right busses or stops
.Define
This stage is in order to gather and document ideas to establish features, functions, and any other elements that will allow riders to solve the problems with the minimum of difficulty.
Personas
A few personas were created around target consumers to model our user stories after into any challenges that go along with riding the bus.
Empathy Map
An empathy map is a simple, easy-to-digest visual that is a useful tool to help "get inside the mind" of the user. The rider experiences a wide variety of things during the process of travel.
User Story
The user story allows us the ability to narrow our scope towards our most important wants and needs of the user. Only capturing the essential elements of the specific requirements.
Ideate
The goal of this design phase is to generate a large number of ideas — ideas that potentially inspire newer, better ideas — then refining them into the best, most practical and innovative ones.
User Flow
After creating a persona and the priorities for the user into a user story. It was time to begin ideating to towards the ideal path or a set of steps towards a successful outcome and final action.
User flow sketch version 1 began the process of creating the user flow to uncover any potential gap in the flow that needed to be addressed.
User flow sketch version 2 began the first refinement of the problem. Find any track, then easily find a horse to pick for an easy bet placed.
Wireframes
A wireframe was generated based on the interviews, surveys, and personas. It was important to maintain that simple and easy to use feel throughout the app.
Logo & Badge Ideation
The exploration into branding for this app began by listening to the users and striving for something that was what targeted just for them. Beginning with the primary goal of attracting potential non-conventional horse betting enthusiasts.
App/Play Store Badge Logo
Final TRX Horizontal Logo
Next Steps
During the definition phase of the project a competitive analysis, user survey, interviews and analysis were done in order to create the most user-centric experience possible by getting well balanced data.
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