My Role
I worked on wireframes, interactions, gamification, and making key product decisions.
I was part of this project from the beginning, creating design strategy and user experience from scratch.
Team
2 designers, 1 Project manager, 2 developers, and 2 artists/cofounders.
Problem Statement
How do we bring a
surrealist art game to mobile?
In the game Exquisite Corpse, players draw on a shared canvas where they can see only part of other players‘ drawings.
This leads to unexpected, surreal creations when unfolded at the end.
When brought online, people can make art with others around the world.
How can we adapt this paper experience for a mobile device?
We identified 3 focus areas after in-person research.
1. New Concepts
Participants had tried the game on paper as children, but had to be introduced to concepts new to EQ, like setting up a digital canvas.
2. Collaboration
We included a few interactions we noticed.
For example, players often wanted specific people to continue their drawing, but were happy to start playing with anyone.
3. REFLECTION
At the end, players get to see what everyone’s artwork looks like. This was an exciting moment we wanted to capture in the app.
Key Solution Elements
1. NEW CONCEPTS
We designed fun interactions to introduce players to new concepts.
Interactive animations help players understand things like:
Players can make games with multiple people, which changed the ways their canvas could look.
They also choose which edge of the canvas they would like the next person to see, and continue drawing from.
2. Communication
We designed fun interactions to introduce players to new concepts.
EQ introduces new ways to join games and share art with others.
We invite players to collaborate online by including helpful copy and graphics.
3. ReFLECTION
Enabling moments of reflection
The ‘Ready to Reveal’ section shows drawings that all participants have completed.
Insights
During research, we found that players were excited to see the final piece and how their drawing fit in with others.
We built interactions that enabled reflection on finished projects by letting players zoom in on individual drawings, while exploring the whole canvas.
PROCESS
The EQ team worked in
co-design sessions to create userflows and wireframes.
We worked directly with developers and project leaders for fast decision making.
We made userflows for scenarios like how players receive invitations.
Wireframes increased in fidelity as we iterated on concepts, like choosing a project title.
1.
Low fidelity wireframes helped create a skeleton of a prototype.
First, we ask players for a project title.
2.
It might be difficult to come up with titles. We moved to the concept of ‘themes’.
With included themes, players around the world could work on similar artwork at once.
3.
The list was simplified, making it easier to choose an option and continue.
4.
Finally, we added the title function back in (as players could now be inspired by the examples included)
We added more features like Drafts.
