Minecraft Desktop App
Minecraft
Omlet Desktop App
The most user-friendly Multiplayer tool.
Goal：
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Understand the advantage of Omlet in Minecraft gamer market
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Design the desktop app and make users start multiplayer easily.
Process：
Usability testing
Product goes online
Marketing research
Ui Flow
Marketing Research
Background：
Minecraft is the best selling game in history. No matter how old you are, you can enjoy the game. There are two main editions of Minecraft which support different operating systems. One of them, Bedrock edition, supports cross devices, such as Windows10, iOS, and Android. All Omlet users are Bedrock Edition players.
The landing page of Bedrock edition
Minecraft multiplayer tool, which helps mobile gamers play Minecraft with each other, runs well in Omlet app. After discussing with product managers, We all agree to get more Minecraft PC users by attracting them to play multiplayer mode with Omlet gamers. Therefore, we decide to do previous research to confirm the opportunity.
Multiplayer feature in Omlet
Research Method
To confirm Minecraft gamer requirements, I choose to interview Minecraft gamers whose ages are similar to Omlet users. Therefore, I recruit participants from the Facebook group, forum, and Omlet. Eventually, I interview 3 gamers of each type:
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Java Edition Gamer：Play Java Edition on PC.
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Bedrock Edition Gamer：Play Bedrock Edition through Window10 system.
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Omlet Minecraft Gamer：Play Bedrock Edition through iOS or Android.
In addition, I look into Minecraft forums and communities to understand how gamers find the partner to play Minecraft and which way do they play together.
Competitor Analysis
There are two main ways for Minecraft Bedrock edition gamers to play multiplayer mode across devices. One is to create or rent a server in which gamers need better computers to make the server run smoothly or spend more money on renting servers after free trial. According to interviews and data, our target gamers and Omlet gamers can't afford high-end equipment and don't like to pay for anything other than games. Therefore, I don't take the server renting service as the leading competitor.
The other one is to use Lan, which Omlet gamers use to play multiplayer mode with others. Surprisingly, there is only one competitor named "Hamachi" that provides Lan service for players to play multiplayer mode cross devices. After collecting enough information, I find two fundamental weakness of Hamachi：
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Awful User experience：If PC gamers want to play with mobile players, the host of Lan has to experience complicate the process and so do client-side.
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Closed environment：Gamers have to share the IP of Lan to other gamers through third platforms. Or they can't find the partner to play together.
Hamachi setting client-side UI
Confirm opportunity --- Sufficient number of Bedrock gamers
According to information from interviews and social communities, I find that most Java gamers have bedrock edition because the campaign in which players can buy Java edition and get Bedrock edition for free had run several years. Therefore, even if Java edition sells better than the other one, there is still a large portion of games that have Bedrock editions.
Confirm opportunity --- Multiplayer mode is indispensable
The result of the interview exposes that multiplayer mode is a core feature for Minecraft gamers. None of them can keep playing Minecraft without it.
Confirm opportunity --- Strength of Omlet
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The process of starting the multiplayer mode is more user-friendly than Hamachi.
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There are tens of thousands of Minecraft users play with others in Omlet. PC gamers can find partners in Omlet easily.
Usability test
Purpose：
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Understand the process that gamer downloads an app from the website.
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Find the problems gamer facing when gamer install and launch the app.
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To ensure that New UI design is easy to use.
Process：
Conduct first Usability test
Conduct second usability test
Design a rough prototype with an engineer.
Design new UI
Participants：
I recruit 5 Minecraft Bedrock edition PC gamers to join the test.
All of them haven't experience in using Omlet. Additionally, Each of them will participate in second usability testing.
Result：
As a result, I find some problems in each process of task and two main insights are affecting my design as follows:
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If the gamer switches the screen to Minecraft, they won't come back to the tool easily. I have to make players accomplish all conditions of starting multiplayer mode before leading them to Minecraft.
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Most games have experience in playing multiplayer mode through server and Lan. However, they can hardly tell the differences between the server and the Lan. So gamers will expect that they can set the game content, which only supported by Server through Lan.
UI Flow
The home Page
Gamers can see lots of Lan hosted by other gamers when they come to the home page. Additionally, showing the Lan in public helps gamers find their gaming partners easily.
The home page of the desktop app
One-click to join the Lan.
The player can easily join the Lan by clicking any join button.
And the popup will come out reminding them they can play with others now. Also, the desktop app launches Minecraft for players.
After that players can find the Lan in Minecraft.
Reminder popup
Host a Lan
Players have to click the "host world" button in the navigation bar.
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The popup comes out and lets the user know what to do.
Also, make the user finish all the settings before opening Minecraft.
If players click the "Host World," the desktop app launch Minecraft for players. The hint on the popup leads the user to start the game in Minecraft.
Result
The chatroom and dashboard popup to remind hosts that they successfully host a Lan after gamers start the multiplayer mode in Minecraft.
Product goes online
Product introduction on website
After sharing the result of former research to the marketing team, we decide not to tell gamers how the tool is easy to use, but to let gamers know there are tens of thousands of Minecraft gamers and different types of worlds in Omlet, they can join the biggest Minecraft Bedrock community with Omlet Minecraft Desktop app.
a part of the product introduction on the website.
Result
After the product going online, we have never received any complaints about usability so far. In addition, we get many users with a low ad budget. In this project, I start with marketing research to product design. During the process, I not only turn the result of research into design and let users participate in the design but influent the decision-making in marketing through sharing the user research.