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Reducing Perceived Loss for New Fantasy Cricket Players
As of 2022, Skilsta has been indefinitely withdrawn from the market.
Overview
Skilsta is a legal, limited and transparent sport betting game where users create teams based on real-life cricket matches.
Each selected player in the team is granted points based on performance in the real match. Users with top ranking teams (based on overall score at the end of the match) earn cash rewards.
Unlike sports betting, the users are not allowed to swap players once the match goes live and hence a larger emphasis is put on skills rather than luck and momentum.
Problem Statement
New knowledgeable users needs a more rewarding and less penalising gameplay in order to avoid frustration arising from initial losses and focus on systematic and skill-based winning rather than one-off wins.
Users & Audience
Users can be broadly divided into two categories based on gameplay strategy.
Early experience determines their fate to a large extent. Our goal is to convert as many new users to type 2 users.
Users can be broadly divided into two categories based on gameplay strategy.
Early experience determines their fate to a large extent. Our goal is to convert as many new users to type 2 users.
Roles & Responsibilities
Role: Product Designer
My major responsibilities included:
- Translating user insights
- Maximising product potential
- Researching growth opportunity and presenting to key stakeholders
- Ideating possible solutions
- Prototyping & UI Design
Other members:
- Worked with CTO - expert in cricket and algorithms
- Worked with CEO - expert in finance and compliance
Scope & Constraints
Low budget & limited research
The startup had been bootstrapped and was running the pilot and developing the final product for over 2 years. This meant that the budget was really low.
Secondly, due to low budget and time constraints, UX research opportunities were scarce.
We had to settle with competitive analysis and online literature on user behaviour in this niche. Although we had our own user insights but the data was prone to bias as the initial customer base provided for a small sample size.
Process & Solutions
Reducing perceived loss by dampening the outcome curve
New users are less analytical and are prone to trust issues. Their investment choices are driven by feeling rather than data. Thus, we targeted the emotion of loss by simulating the emotion of being rewarded using in-app currency.
The diagram above explains the relation between perceived loss and simulated winnings. We knew we wanted to introduce an in-app currency. Since the main feature of this currency would be to enable users to join matches, we chose to model it after real-life tickets that are required to watch matches.
The strength of this currency would indirectly influence the perceived loss, hence the next logical step was to work on strengthening the In-App Currency.
Increasing the In-App Currency Value
We based our goals on the mechanics of real world currencies. In simple terms, the value of a currency rises due to these features (and more):
- Lower inflation value → Distribution should be less than expenditure
Tickets were to be distributed from a limited source only. - High purchasing power → Currency should be able to make valuable trades
The highly valuable “Power-ups” could only be purchased using tickets, this made the dealing of tickets necessary for the user. - Strong Economic Performance → Currency bought items should have higher returns (or, have low-risk)
We limited the matches user could join with tickets. Specific low-risk-low-gain matches were chosen for this purpose. These would also make up for losses incurred from regular gameplay.
Blasting Stimuli with Sweepstakes
We imported the high-risk-high-reward principle of betting in a safer, legal and ethical form by introducing randomness in the distribution mechanism. The potential promise of a big reward allows for extra motivation while maintaining the net reward. Further, we decided to disburse occasional mega-winnings (100 tickets) to blast user stimuli.
The Pseudo-hook
While, the primary gameplay incorporates a hook by default, we designed the pseudo-hook to serve as the internal trigger to the main hook.
As a routine feature, users were sent notifications to join a match (external trigger). As the primary goal is to encourage the user to join more matches, we decided to give away a free shot at the sweepstakes (action) in anticipation of Tickets (variable reward) each time the user joins a match (investment). The blasted stimuli would then kick-in to provide additional motivation (internal trigger) to spin the wheel which would in turn provide additional motivation to join a match (internal trigger to the main hook).
Early Prototypes
We were looking towards GPay and PayTM as they had recently introduced gamification to their experience. Some initial wireframes were sketched up.
Final User Interface
Here are some snaps from the final UI.
Results
Skilsta was withdrawn from the market too early for us to measure results.
Using Brand Strategy to Guide Web Design for A Hollywood Picture Cars Company
Overview
Picture Car companies provide brokerage for cars and other vehicles used in movies. For a new interface, it was crucial to first understand the customers and their core problems. We started with some Brand Story workshops, moving into wireframes and finally a responsive web UI.
Roles & Responsibilities
Worked with Owner - 15+ years in Hollywood
Worked with PM & Web Developer
Supervised Junior Content Writer
My Role - Brand Strategist & Web Designer
Responsibilities:
- Brand Strategy
- Copywriting
- UX/UI Design
Process & What we did
A film production requires hundreds of people from distinct backgrounds serving different needs. The existing approach among all the competitors was to provide a catalogue of their collection with some contact details.
The larger goal of the project was to achieve differentiation in the niche. Early discussions revealed the straight-to-work attitude among customers. We had to figure out differentiate ourselves while avoiding any kind of marketing junk to fill up the website.
I lead some workshops based on Donald Miller’s Story Brand model.
Understanding the Customer Base
The workshop was conducted with various stakeholders from Hollywood.
With his extensive experience working in film production, the Owner shared great insights regarding the nature of the business and the competitive landscape. We were constantly reminded that the primary factor that drove sales was trust. On a movie set, every hour costs thousands of dollars so it is imperative to ensure that the picture car will be delivered to the well before time.
Plus, with advances in cinematic imaging, the audience can actively point out inaccuracies in the model. Thus, it was important to assure that we have personally vetted our vehicles to avoid last minute surprises.
Insights:
- Time is of the essence, every hour can add thousands of dollars on a shoot day.
- Period and Aesthetic accuracy of the model is of chief importance.
- Trust, faith and reliability sustain the customer relationship.
Content Comes First
I cannot possibly overstate the importance of shaping a marketing website around the content. Thousands of brilliantly designed websites fail because of poor copywriting or designs that compete with the copy. I have seen countless websites with generic designs that consistently get results with compelling copy. The goal is to use design as a tool to aid in this communication.
I designed some initial wireframes for landing pages and product pages along with some other elements.
Designing for Users that don’t have the time to read
A majority of users were visiting to simply access our catalogue or to get contact details. They could be on the set or on their phone so we knew that they were definitely going to skip over any large chunk of text.
This meant that the content had to be distilled into easily readable chunks with visual aides like icons and images.
Distilling Vehicle Condition into a Score
A big issue with picture cars is that the brokers often have unverified vehicle images received from vehicle owners. By placing the condition data along with the product listing, we were able to reinforce our commitment to transparency.
10 features of a vehicle were identified. Often times Art Directors would not mind if some features are missing. For example, a car chase scene wouldn’t require a working stereo.
Pushing Car Owners for Better Images
The sweetest ride can look poor with bad shots. This can severely impact the listing. So, I added some instructions for car owners to take better images at the listing form stage.
Final UI
Here are some snapshots from the final UI
