Create a Challenge

Turning infinite possibilities into a clear
easy-to-use flow.

Summary

One of our primary launches at Rainmaker centered around the concept of a "Challenge". Similar to apps like Strava or Apple Health, certain video games track various statistics on a per game basis. A Challenge is a time-based leaderboard based on one of those statistics. For example: "how many games can you win in 24 hours?".

However, there's an enormous amount of complexity available to make the challenge more interesting. Things such as:

- Time limit
- Objective
- How many games are allowed
- Limiting to certain game characters
- etc.

All of these options meant that creating a fun and fair challenge was easier, but also more complicated. We needed to create a flow that catered to the casual user, as well as the hardcore user who wanted to customize everything. The following work shows our process and iteration.

My Role

Lead Designer, Design Manager

Timeline

~4 weeks

Tools

Figma, Linear, Internal and external research and testing

Initial Version

Trying a sentence structure to help the user.

Our first approach was to have each prompt help the user craft a sentence. For example: "The winner will have the highest 'objective', while playing as 'champion name', over the course of the next 'timeframe', including the players 'game limit'.

We pursued this approach for quite a while, and went through many, many versions. We created something of the vast complexity that every designer knows and fears:

Research and Testing

Room for improvement.

Luckily, we had access to a solid group of beta testers in the form of college gaming clubs. The go-to-market team at Rainmaker had identified these clubs as a great way to find and locate the type of gamers we were looking for.

We were able to run a series of beta tests in which we would have the gaming club leader create their own challenge, speaking along the way to any confusion or complexity.

Our takeaways were fairly simple and classic UX revelations: make it simpler, make it quicker, keep the optionality.

Final Version

Reduced upfront complexity & gimmicky sentence structure.

Ultimately, our findings not only convinced us to change the flow, but also to reduce the complexity of our entire product. We realized that we were creating a spaceship without our users actually asking for it.