Interstice
A platform where gaming communities can share and discover creative content and mods.
OVERVIEW
Role
Sole User Researcher and User Experience Designer; Market Research, Ideating Design Principles, Creating the Design Language, Style Guide, & Component Library, Wireframing
Duration
Fall - Winter 2022
THE CHALLENGE
I challenged myself to design an online platform that encouraged online social interaction in gaming sub-communities, and allowed for users to easily find, save, and share inspiring creative gaming content, all in the same place.
My Answer
This was my process.
I decided to create a social media platform for video game communities to share and discover various type of creative content; ranging from in-game creations and designs to fan-made game modifications.
OUTLINING THE OPPORTUNITY
To narrow down the scope of the platform’s features, I identified target user groups and conducted market research and analysis on the ways users currently utilize existing social media platforms to find and share creative video game content, in order to identify the most important user values, the corresponding user needs, and the required platform capabilities.
Analyzing Existing Solutions
I found that creators in these gaming sub-communities currently share their creations across various platforms such as Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, NexusMods, game-specific platforms, and creator-made websites. In addition, for creators to receive monetary support for their time and effort, they often use websites such as Patreon and Buy Me a Coffee to enable supporters to donate. Each platform’s structure offers advantages and drawbacks for the purpose of the target user groups.
Market Research
Instagram
The focus on visual media, lack of support for text, and bookmarking feature leads to most gaming-related content to be in-game screenshots focused on aesthetics, or promotional posts for mods that require users to go to another platform to download.
Twitter
The microblogging format with retweet/quote features encourages community discussion, content reshares, and creator updates. Mods download pages are usually hyperlinked. However, the useless search filters makes finding relevant content outside of followings difficult.
Pinterest
The ability to search, filter, and organize saved posts into folders and sections is very useful for browsing content. Frequent content reposts without credit to the original creator makes it difficult to find creators to follow.
Tumblr
The post formatting features and profile page customization makes this platform popular with creators. However, the only way to save posts is to “like” them, and downloadable files must be hosted elsewhere.
NexusMods
With support for updates, bug reports, and formatting for each mod’s requirements and files, it’s one of the most popular platforms for hosting mods. However, it’s tricky to bookmark posts while browsing, and it doesn’t encourage frequent logins, so people miss mod updates.
ModDrop
Similarly to Nexus, the support for bug report and updates makes it it popular for hosting mods. The “mod packs” feature allows users to curate compatible mods. However, browsing is difficult as there is no way to bookmark mods and there are no search filters.
Patreon
The subscription model incentives users to support creators monetarily, and files can be downloaded straight from each post. However, most games do not allow fans to profit from mods and custom content, so paywalling some content is illegal.
Creator-Made Websites
Some creators of popular mods make and maintain their own website. However, this is not within the capabilities of most creators. Users usually must specifically search for these websites, and most don’t stay up to date with new posts on them.
Research Insights
Creators in these gaming sub-communities currently share their creations across various platforms, depending on the type of content and the platforms’ affordances and constraints. Gameplay content showing off in-game creations are often shared on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. However, they don’t support posting downloadable files, so some creators will promote their work on one of the aforementioned platforms and host the files on NexusMods, ModDrop, Patreon, game-specific websites such as ModTheSims, or creator-made websites. In addition, creators also used Patreon and Buy Me A Coffee to enable users to give monetary support for their time and efforts.
Non-creators used these platforms to discover, search for, and filter content; supporting and engaging with creators; and tracking and organizing content for later referral. Pinterest and Instagram are visual media focused and allows for easy bookmarking and organizing posts, and while Twitter and Patreon are not, they allow for users to easily interact with creators. These platforms also encouraged frequent community interactions because they’re available as mobile apps. Most users don’t use NexusMods, ModDrop, or Creator-made websites for regular gameplay content browsing, but searching specifically for mods.
IDENTIFYING THE USERS
General Users
Users who want to support creators and browse, search for, and save game-related content.
Creators
Users who want to post game-related content, such as custom content, mods, or in-game creations
User Personas and Needs
Kai
A casual player of Animal Crossing New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch. He likes to browse and bookmark Animal Crossing posts on Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration to decorate his island, but he sometimes finds it difficult to track down the in-game Creator Codes for the Custom Designs being used in posts.
Aliyah
A Sims 4 creator on Tumblr that often posts on screenshots of the Sims she makes and upload to the in-game gallery. Sometimes she also releases downloadable Custom Content for Create-A-Sim. Tumblr is fine for pictures of her Sims because she can include her Gallery ID in those posts. However, she finds it annoying to have to host the download files on Patreon and link them in her Custom Content post, but has found that not as many people see content she releases without posting about it on Tumblr.
Jordan
A modder that created one of the most downloaded Stardew Valley Mods on Nexus. They regularly release updates for their mod as people report bugs and the base game gets updated. They try their best to keep up with people’s questions, but there are so many repetitive ones, they wish people read the mod description more carefully. They’re not active on any other social media platforms, but they enjoy seeing other players using their mod when they come across it, so they wish it were easier to do so.
THE DESIGN PROCESS
Then, I designed the pages and features of Interstice based on the finding of my market and user research. Here are some of the wireframes and short explanations for the function of each page.
Homepage
Feed shows recent posts from followed creators
Interact with posts without leaving the feed by liking, bookmarking, or sharing the post
Click on a post to see the full page for more details and interactions
Recommneded and trending topics on the right
Nav bar is on the left; click menu icon to expand
Search bar maintains position while scrolling, always within reach for for easy access
Full Post
Clicking on a post brings you to the post's full page
The page format changes slightly depending on what type of post it is
Collapsable sections for ease of skimming through large amounts of info/text
A secondary, independently scrolling column to browse similar posts
Explore Page
Feed shows recommended posts based on user's interests
Filter recommendations by game and post type (gameplay, mods, custom content, etc.)
Click on a tile at the top to show only recommended post under a certain category
Bookmarks
Two types of saved posts: bookmarks and tracking
Bookmarks are a quick way to flag posts while browsing to refer to later
Tracking posts are ones that the use would like to receive notifications for when they are updated
Each type of saved posts allows for organization into folders and subfolders
Profile
Users' profile pages are organized into subpage tabs
Home: Carousels of the user's most popular uploads and their Collections
Uploads: Shows all of the user's uploads
Posts: Posts creators want to keep separate from their main list of uploads but will still appear on followers' feeds
Collections: Lists of uploads organized by the creator into categories
About: A page for longer user introductions text
Endorsements: Shows the user's reshared posts of other creators
Tips: An interface where users can make monetary donations to support the creator's work
