Game
Web App
SAAS
Overview and challenge!!
KeenChess is an online chess p2e (play to earn) platform. It fosters learning the chess game by giving real rewards as users answer chess questions correctly. At its core, Keenchess is a nexus for chess aficionados to challenge their understanding of the game, compete in various trivia formats, and earn cash rewards.
I adopted a user-centered design approach by conducting research to see the complaints and feedback from current customers of the platform. With the gathered insights, I redesigned keenchess, prioritising meeting the needs of users to ensure all the issues they encountered were well catered for.
Concept & approach
Traditional chess platforms focus on gameplay, leaving limited space for those looking to deepen their knowledge or engage with the community beyond the board. The idea is to give the platform a new look, make it more appealing and usable to enable users have an enjoyable experience whenever they use keenchess.
We placed our focus on the branding and interface design, by focusing on the basics, color, Hierarchy and layout structure. But before we did anything, we did some research, to see what current users are saying and using the results to guide future decisions.
Putting things into perspective
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, chess has seen massive growth, with more players than ever coming together to participate in chess events that are being increasingly held through online platforms.
Because of that there have been an influx of chess games over the years (46% increase). However, this statistics is mainly for over the board chess. One of the goals of rebranding Keenchess is to help make trivia chess become the next big thing in the chess market.
Shots from previous design
Feeding off analytics
We conducted product analytics on the current website to determine how our customers were interacting with the product to give us informed decisions on how to improve the design, this included bounce rate, pages viewed per visit, time spent, and engagement over time. We also used trust to fish out more data, we found out some intriguing stuff.
Data showed that visitors on the platform had been reducing steadily over time, also feedback from trust pilot clearly indicated concerns from existing customers. This was a major concern for the stakeholders of the platform and thus the need for this redesign.
The design
Whitespace, colour, hierarchy and content structure were our main focus for the redesign. We made sure to highlight important details and positioned where our target users expect them to be in order to improve the conversion rate.
We kept in mind the needs of users and what we wanted them to interact with the most and nudged them towards using them which not only helped users play the game but also generate revenue for us.
What I learnt
With the updated style guide, revamped website and streamlined dashboard that focus on user needs, we expect an increase in user engagement and satisfaction whenever they play the game. This will eventually translate to profit when the webapp is launched!!
Results from test reflected that the research done and solutions implemented clearly matches the needs of users as participants were able to use the prototypes to simulate the gaming experience without interference from observers.
Fun fact: Keenchess is currently in discussions to be acquired by a global chess company in 2025
Thanks for reading!!
