Call of Duty Onboarding
Defining a new onboarding experience for newcomers to the first person shooter genre
My contributions: User interviews, user flows, usability testing, UI design
Context
Call of Duty, a first-person shooter game franchise that dates back to 2003. Activision needed to drive social engagement with their companion app and for players to stay connected.
Problems
For inexperienced players, the game becomes too difficult for enjoyment. Even for those that has an interest, the steep difficult steers them away from the game.
Solution
We designed "Special Ops", a cooperative game mode where objectives are designed to help new players experiment with new ways to play.
The steep learning curve is a challenge in expanding the player base. There are social and multiplayer game modes to provide a better environment to practice; however, new players are still dropped into the game without much assistance.
"I find it frustrating when other beginners enter a negative blame spiral over their performance. Sometimes, they just can't escape the fact that they're new and it takes time to learn the game."
Felix, experienced first-person shooter gamer
"I love the first person genre but COD's continuous releases intimidate me and I just give up usually."
Danielle, new to the first person shooter genre
An early version of our wireframes showing a few user flows: Spec Ops home page, operations overview, and teams management.
Special Ops home screen. Users can browse and select a mission of their choice and preview different objectives in each mission.
Concept Designs
Special Ops tutorials has a series of overlays explaining what this game mode is and how to play.
Special Ops tutorials has a series of overlays explaining what this game mode is and how to play.
Badges are just the beginning of the rewards system to help players engage more with each other through shared achievements and experiences
