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OPPO Games Space
New User Need Exploration

Quant + Qual

Generative

In-depth Interview

Survey

A generative UXR project to investigate how OPPO users are involved in mobile game-related activities, with the objective of finding directions for new features of the OPPO Game Space app.

Year: 2020-2021

Team: OPPO

Role: Lead UX Researcher

Method: Survey +  Interview

Research Type: Strategic UXR

Product

What is OPPO Game Space?

OPPO Game Space is a free game utility and optimization app for OPPO smartphones. It's a system tool that allow users to access all mobile games installed on their device in one place and optimizing the gaming experience. 

Key features of Game Space includes: ​

  • Personal game library: One stop for all games. Customized game management.

  • Professional game assistant: Optimizing gaming experience with a set of tools such as mis-touch prevention, notification control, etc

  • The new "Explore" feature: recommend popular games and gaming related videos.

Background

"Run a research to find out what shall we add to Game Space"

I got a research request to"run a research to find out what shall we add to Game Space" from the product team. The request was quite vague and broad (which often happens), so as the UX researcher, the first thing I did was to discuss with the product team to clarify the context and better understand how I can help.

I then figured out that the request was mainly around the Explore feature of game Space. It has been 4 months since the feature was launched, the team would like to know users' feedback on this feature and what are potential directions for gaming content recommendation in the Explore page.

Goal & Research Questions

Collect user feedback on the  Explore feature, understand OPPO users' gaming habits throughout the gaming lifecycle , and identify pain points in game-related activities across various media types.

Current Habits

Understand users gaming habits and how they are engaged in game-related activities (e.x. gaming videos/articles/forum/social media)

Pain Points

Explore the current pain points and barriers that users have when doing game related activities

Feedback

Collect user feedback on the current Explore feature in the OnePlus Games app. (What they like and dislike.)

Method

Survey
In-depth Interview

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Survey

What are the most popular Game genres?
What types of gaming-related content do users consume and how much time they spend?

Process

Work with designers to streamlined the 2 different user flows, from mobile and from desktop, in order to build an exclusive map including all the possible cases users might encounter during installation.

Participants
  • Launch in the OnePlus Community Forum

  • Target N = 400

Survey Questions
  • Most popular category of games

  • What kinds of game related content do users consume

  • How much time do they spent on them.

Use survey as a screener to recruit participants for the follow-up interview

Insights

90% users are engaged in some sort of game related activities.

Watching gaming videos or livestream appeared to be the top, followed by using gaming forums and  social media.

* Limited content is shown due to confidentiality. For more findings and learnings, please contact yichenwang96@gmail.com.

In-depth Interview

What are the needs and pain points in the gaming lifecycle?

Process

Participants
  • Participants N = 8

  • Recruiting criteria:

    • OnePlus user in India

    • play mobile games at least once a week

    • engaged in at least one game-related activitie

Detailed Goals

Have a deeper understanding of:

  • the whole process from finding a game to stop playing a game

  • the current platforms of consuming game-related content

  • potential pain points and need about game-related content

Sample Interview Questions
  • Ask users to send a screenshot of the gaming apps on their phone

  • Please walk me through how you started the game?

    • Where did you know about the game? 

    • How did you learn to play/master the game?

    • Any problems or challenges you met in the process?

  • Gaming videos:

    • Do you watch live stream or pre-recorded gaming videos?

    • On what platforms do you watch?

    • What types of gaming videos do you watch?

    • How do you find what to watch?

Insights

User Journey Map
  • Summarized the user behavior, tools/platform, pain points and opportunities in each stage of the gaming process.

  • Summarized what kinds of gaming content people consume in each stage of the gaming process.

* Limited content is shown due to confidentiality. For more findings and learnings, please contact yichenwang96@gmail.com.

Impact

Set foundation for partnership with Youtube & Spotify

The valuable insights into people's music listening needs while gaming and their interest in game-related videos eventually resulted in OPPO's strategic partnerships with YouTube and Spotify.

A promotion for UXR

 

UXR became a strategic partner of product teams. I received 3 research requests after sharing the research presentation.

Reflections

What I learned from this project

Sampling

More rigid sampling strategy. More clear understanding of different user segments.

Make it "our research"

Ask for contribution is the secret to get more buy-in: Stakeholders will be more likely to value your research findings if they are involved all the way through the research process.

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