Shop Revamp
Sept 2024
My Role
Working on the UX and UI for the revamped shop for targeted monetization, upselling bundles and increased sink depth.
Duration
July 24 - Sept 24
Context
Two Dots is a minimalist puzzle game where players connect matching-colored dots in various patterns to achieve specific goals within a limited number of moves. The gameplay feels calm and strategic, with relaxing visuals and soothing sound design, offering a mix of casual play and mental challenge as levels become more intricate over time.
We have to keep in mind that we are designing for
650,000+ Daily Players, 35M Lifetime
Team
Rajit Pimpale - Game Design
Kalyani Nimbalkar - Product Manager
Shubhesh, Saswat - Engg
Rutuja Patil - Concept Art
Problem Areas
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All players see the same gold packs in same ascending order starting with a $2 pack
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Buy page is cluttered with an overload of gold pack options & buy CTAs; overwhelm for players to make the best choice
$1.99 pack (18 gold) contributes to 48% of transactions & 17% of revenue
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1-2 bundles are available to each player as limited time offers (Hero offers)
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Although being of better value when benchmarked to coin packs, value proposition of Hero Offer compared to regular pack is not well represented in UI
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Need for a horizontal scroll for hero offer is counter intuitive & hidden as well
Sum of all hero offers contribute to only 10% of revenue
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Coin/$ value of gold mine (max price: $9.99) is much better compared to all packs in shop, including the higher packs. This is one of the major reasons for players to stick to the $9.99 price point despite higher affordability.
Gold Mine (Tier 3: $9.99) is has the highest revenue contribution across all IAP touchpoints. It contributes to 17.5% of overall revenue; For the whales & killer whales cohort, it contributes to 20% of revenue
Opportunities
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Cleaner UI
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Segmentation & pack recommendations by player cohort
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Addition of bundles
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Better discount curve
Goal
The primary goal of the shop revamp is to boost revenue, which depends on three key factors. By increasing one or more of these factors, we can raise shop revenue.
Shop Revenue = Average Transaction Size x Conversion Rate (Transactions/Impressions) x Total Impressions
Where:
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Average Transaction Size: The amount a player spends in a single purchase.
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Conversion Rate: The percentage of players who make a purchase after viewing the shop (e.g., if 100 players view the shop, how many make a purchase).
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Total Impressions: The total number of players who see the shop.
To improve these factors, we are considering the following strategies:
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Upselling
Encourage players to spend more than they initially intended (increase average transaction size).-
Implementation: Display higher-value bundles alongside standard coin packs. The revamped shop will also allow for future sales promotions.
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Personalization
Tailor the shop to individual players by offering more relevant deals (increase conversion rate).-
Implementation: Present different offers to different player segments based on their purchasing behavior.
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Simplified Decision-Making
Reduce choice overload to make it easier for players to decide (increase conversion rate).-
Implementation: Show a limited set of offers upfront in a collapsed view. Use price anchoring by placing easily comparable bundles next to similar-priced coin packs.
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Enhanced Discounts for High Spenders
Incentivize players to spend more in one go by offering better value on higher-priced packs.-
Implementation: Increase the amount of gold offered for larger purchases.
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Risk: This could lead to inflated player wallets, so it will be validated through A/B testing.
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Benchmarking
The Journey of exploring the interactions, flows for shops across all games began. This phase involved creation for empathy maps, user journey maps, archetype creation, and competitive analysis.
The following games have been shortlisted based on three criterias.
1. Shop screens from games leading in IAP
2. Shop Screens from leading Match3 games
3. Shop screens with Games with a similar visual language
Empathy Map
The feature covers all the revenue generation touchpoints in the game (i.e. Shop, End Game, Desperate Buy, Pre Game, No Gold)
Lvl 0 -15
The new player archetype consists of players who are new installs + D0 to D7 + Reinstall players, level 1 - 15
Game World Knowledge
Scavenger Hunt Experience
Feature Exposure
Spend
Lvl 6200 - 6400
These players have almost finished the game and are up to date to the topmost saga map. You might also hear them being mentioned as “End of World” players
Game World Knowledge
Scavenger Hunt Experience
Feature Exposure
Spend
Lvl 360 - 6400
Majority of our prime DAU, these players pay with engagement. Constantly watch ads, play side modes to earn currency. Basically collect the currency any way but not buying it until its absolutely necessary
Game World Knowledge
Scavenger Hunt Experience
Feature Exposure
Spend
Lvl 60 - 6400
These players usually are in the higher levels of the game, but some streamers and players start spending as early as lvl 60. This Cohort of players is our biggest spender in the game.
Game World Knowledge
Scavenger Hunt Experience
Feature Exposure
Spend
Reward Representation
The Reward representation poses two challenges in the core game.
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Poor scalability and flexibility across different features the way it is currently implemented.
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Very low emphasis on the amount makes affects the readability of the reward in certain packs and also adds a layer of complication for decision making
Improving the value proposition of the reward card by putting more emphasis on the amount
A pattern we observed in benchmarking leading IAP games (as per SensorTower) and leading Match3 games (as per GameRefinery) was higher emphasis on the amount. Hypothesis being more emphasis on rewards might make it easier for players to quickly understand the value for different packs and also comparing different packs to make a decision
Short Onboarding
To encourage player engagement with the new feature at launch, we plan to grant some free currency at the start of the event. To enhance the delivery of this message, we thought it would be beneficial to include a brief onboarding experience.
Andria will serve as the mentor for this tutorial, as Emily and Jack are already prominently featured on this screen, and we want to avoid overusing these characters.
Gold Shop
The Reward representation poses two challenges in the core game.
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Poor scalability and flexibility across different features the way it is currently implemented.
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Very low emphasis on the amount makes affects the readability of the reward in certain packs and also adds a layer of complication for decision making
The Revamped Shop
The redesigned store enhances the user experience by minimizing mental strain, highlighting the value of bundles to ensure players seize the best deals, and addressing the paradox of choices. Additionally, it provides new players, who may not yet grasp the value of in-game gold, with alternative incentives such as power-ups and boosters.
Shop Bundles
The following were some of the key problems that came up with the existing bundles
1.The rewards are inadequately highlighted.
2. It's challenging to assess the packs and the rarity of their rewards.
3. Readability becomes compromised when there are more than six items.
4. One bundle card at a time relies on the player to retain the information of the previous pack
Research learnings:
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Create a hierarchy based on reward rarity (Gold takes the highest priority)
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Divide the rewards based on the typology so the information is consumed in chunks rather than seperate elements
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Primary emphasis on the rewards
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Consistency in UX across multiple bundles, color changes for emphasis on special packs is additional
Empowering faster decision making by making a more Intuitive and Cognitive light UI
The goals for an ideal bundle design is for it to have less cognitive load, and high value proposition for the rewards, which helps results in faster decision making. Looking at how different games have also approached and solved for the same problem.
Exploration
The exploration phase included rough wireframing, refinement of the user flows, identification of edge cases and obviously improvement on the iterations.
Phase I
We started off with some wireframes on ideation sheets and whiteboard discussions with Game Design and Product managers
Phase II
Rough low fidelity wireframe mock exploration kicked off. The process was to scale up from the Reward to Shop Bundle to Shop Layout
Phase III
We explored approximately 100+ mid fidelity and high fidelity iterations to come to the move towards the final direction which accomodated for all the cases and requirements we had
Playtests
The explorations would go through different rounds of playtests with primary stakeholders and people of both different and current function. At this stage we make sure that we answer A/B decisions. Identify biases and problems with the proposed UI.
Shop Bundles
For this phase we went ahead with 5 bundle structures, these structures strictly demanded us to create a scalable which a wide range of 4 to 12 consumables as rewards
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Gold + upto 4 consumables + upto 4 durables (+1 life optional)
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Gold + upto 4 consumables/durables (+1 life optional)
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Upto 4 Consumables + 4 Durables (+1 life optional)
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Upto 4 Consumables/Durables (+1 life optional)
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Special Bundle (SALE or special offers)
This iteration aims to make the information easier and quicker to absorb, give players a greater sense of value, and facilitate comparison with other offers and packs.
The following design places all elements in separate sub-containers to enhance readability and comparability.
The highest-value items are positioned on the left, followed by consumables, durables, and finally lives on the right.
The layout utilizes the "Z-Pattern" to facilitate easier information absorption and decision-making.(Reference)
While benchmarking we realised majority of the match3 games and IAP leading games have approached a folded shop UI. Hypothesis being it is a great solution because it would offer a more streamlined and intuitive user experience, it makes decision making easier for players based on which stage they are in the game.
In order to validate the same we are also exploring the opportunity to A/B test the folded view with two variants. (Priority of the A/B test to be discussed)
- Folded Shop/Unfolded Shop
- Only Unfolded Shop (Infinite scroll)
Reward Representation
We feel that the capsule representation is needed to be retained to maintain the visual language for the game. This representation reduces the visual clutter on the background and puts more emphasis on the powerups.
Purchase Acknowledgement Pop Up
The current purchase acknowledgement pop up design won’t be compatible with the high number of items the player is receiving with Bundles (eg. max 10)
The new design divides the consumables and non consumables in two rows, also removes the text list of rewards to make it less redundant and highlights the bundle/pack name instead.