Adding a Feature to Pokémon GO
Project Overview
Pokémon GO is an augmented reality mobile game that merges the virtual world of Pokémon with fanatics in the real world. Although it’s a social game, there is no form of communication within the app itself. Even though the company developed an app called Campfire to provide a means of communication and organizing raids, I’ve observed that many users still would rather use Facebook, Reddit, or Discord to find users to play with. Because of this, I wanted to add features that would improve the game’s raiding experience without having to leave the application just to organize raids.
Role: UX/UI Designer
Duration: January 2024 to February 2024 (1 month)
Tools: Figma, Photoshop, Whimsical, Maze
Discover
Research
Goal
I want to discover if adding a communication feature would add to the Pokémon GO experience.
Objectives
Find out what users are currently using to connect with other users
Understand frustrations when coordinating trades & raids
Determine why users would need to communicate with others
Discover any other pain points when playing Pokémon GO
Methods
Competitive Research
User Interviews with Pokémon GO players
“What has been the most frustrating experiences with PGO?”
“What do you currently use to connect with others in the PGO community?”
“Outside of social interaction, what else could PGO improve on?”
Competitor Analysis
Campfire was created just for Pokémon GO and other Niantic games, however not a lot of people are aware it exists or refuse to use it and would rather use Facebook, Discord, Reddit, etc. It seems no one wants to continuously exit the app just to chat on Campfire.
Because there are young players on Pokémon GO I looked into Roblox and how their chat feature functions. They block out anything that is remotely inappropriate as well as bad words. The chat encourages for collaboration and learning between players.
Ingress Prime is a Niantic game with similar take overs that has a chat feature used to coordinate when to take over portals. Due to its older audience, the chat doesn’t censor curse words. Something like this could be incredibly useful for Pokémon GO as well.
User Interviews
Logistics
6 Pokémon GO Players
25-36 years old
Remote interviews
Noticeable Themes
While an in-game chat feature would be nice, users don’t communicate with others outside of adding new friends and meeting up for raids.
The major pain points mentioned by users were related to the experience of finding and joining raids.
Another raid related pain point are users losing their raid and remote raid passes when other players leave the raid lobby last minute.
Shifting the Focus to the Raid Experience
The users I spoke with don’t live close to a gym, so they typically have to drive to link up with other players.
There are multiple stories from users where raids were coordinated but the others players would start without the user– causing them to miss the opportunity to catch a powerful Raid Boss.
Raids are the most collaborative part of the game, why not shift the focus towards applying “communication” to this aspect of the game?
User Persona
Empathy Map
Problem Statement
In the beginning, I had a hunch that Pokémon GO players needed a way to chat with each other in-game to trade or coordinating gathering double exp from becoming best friends. However, there were more pressing matters regarding the overall raiding experience. Players currently hoard their remote raid passes and don’t want to waste them. If we create a way for players to know who will join a raid at a given time, they will be more willing to use their remote raid passes to join a raid.
“How might we provide information for players to know about upcoming raids to encourage using their remote passes to join a raid?”
Define
Feature Set
01. Reserving a Spot for Raid
Finding people to raid with is such a pain, it only makes sense to create a feature that allows users to reserve spots. This allows players to see how many people are reserving a specific time spot in their area and also mark that they intend to join the raid too. This allows users to confidently use their remote and local raid passes more.
02. Adding Emotes in Raid Lobby
Raid lobbies often last two minutes, so during that time period this feature is meant to create some sort of camaraderie as well as encourage people to stay in the lobby. Although my original hunch about the chat feature isn’t the focus anymore, I thought it would be nice to allow users to “chat” using pre-written messages.
03. Adding Friends after Raid Ends
The users I interviewed mentioned that they would add friends on Facebook, Discord, or Reddit without ever interacting with them ever again. If users are able to add friends straight from a raid that they completed together, it gives them a chance of raiding together again in the future.
User and Task Flows
To help me understand how I could enhance the user’s raid experience, I created these user and task flows to visualize all the steps taken to achieve the goals of the new features. This would in turn make it incredibly easy to sketch out the lo-fi screens.
Reserving a Spot for a Raid
Sending Emote in Raid Lobby
Adding a Player After Raid
Design
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Using the user and task flows and existing screens from Pokémon GO, I thought of ways to seamlessly add new features into the game. With Pokémon GO’s design system, I was able to easily sketch up new screens although designing on top of existing screens using Photoshop felt challenging.
When users look for nearby raids they naturally click the Nearby pop-up, so it only made sense to add this feature into that flow. The only new things are when they view the raid they are able to reserve it and choose a time slot.
Adding a message while in the lobby needed to be clear for the user, so I played with the placement within the Pokémon team choosing area or right above it.
At the end of a raid, they show trainer achievements where you can look at each player and what achievement they got. It would make sense to allow users to add friends from this screen.
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
After confirming with my mentor and a few colleagues, I used screenshots from the Pokémon GO game to build out the flows. Because I designed in black and white, I realized how colorful the game would be and how important it was to ensure visual hierarchy to capture the user’s eye.
Testing
Mid Fidelity Usability Testing
Goal
I want to know if users could successfully complete the three different task flows using black and white mock ups.
Tasks
Reserve a time slot for a raid
Enter the 5:40PM time slot for raid from home screen
Find Emote button in lobby screen and choose one
Make a new friend from the raid
Key Takeaways
Everyone was excited about the time reservation for raid times, but a few users mentioned that it would be useful if the game allowed for players to modify or cancel their reservation before the raid starts. Sometimes an unexpected event happens and you have to make changes to plans, so players shouldn’t be punished and lose their raid passes because of that.
Something that was surprising after testing is that one of the users sent me a screenshot showing that the adding friends feature already existed asking how I got Pokémon GO to change this so quickly. I had an option to completely abandon that feature to focus on the rest, but I decided that there could still be enhancements to that feature.
High Fidelity Wireframes
There were two major adjustments done for the hi-fi’s which were adding the option to modify reservations and improving Pokémon GO’s existing add a friend feature. Allowing users to change or cancel their reservation times adds value and doesn’t punish them for needing to modify the time slot. The enhancement to the add a friend feature was allowing for users to add all users at once instead of adding one by one. Lastly, to further enhance the experience of adding friends, I added “Encounters” in the Friends screen.
One minor adjustment was the placement of the messages displayed by users after they emoted. Users mentioned they didn’t like that it was underneath the players so I wanted to test out two different placements.
Added a Raid Reservations section of the Nearby pop-up screen. Once users make a reservation, they will show here where users can modify or cancel the reservation.
Because users mentioned the weird placement of the message, I wanted to test out other placements and design treatments.
I was excited to see that Niantic had a similar solution to what I designed, but I still saw an opportunity to improve it further by letting users "Add a Players".
In addition to being able to add all players from a raid, I thought it would be nice to allow for users to view encounters from both raid battles AND gym takeovers. Adding these people would be beneficial for new friends to gain experience and have a higher possibility of coordinating trades/raids.
Hi Fidelity Usability Testing
Goal
I wanted users to test out the enhanced features to ensure they work and were clear using full color hi-fi screens.
Tasks
Modify their reservation time to a new time slot
A/B Testing of Raid Lobby Messages
Add ALL players from raid
Navigate to “Encounters”
Key Takeaways
Even though I added an option to add all players, there was still room for improvement. A few users were trying to click add one by one instead of clicking “Add All Players” which means that it wasn’t noticeable enough and needed to be adjusted for visibility because it didn’t look like a button.
Overall, every feature was for the most part clear and intuitive. Users were able to easily modify their reservation time and navigate to “Encounters”. They also liked both options presented for how messages were displayed, but one user suggested placing it in the midway point between the feet and chest so that it wouldn’t block the animations of the players in the raid lobby.
Results
Prioritization of Iterations
After testing the hi-fidelity screens, these are the changes I would do next for the next iterations.
Update “Add All Players” option to be more obvious for the users.
Adjust placement of sent messages in the raid lobby screen.
Cut down the amount of steps needed to make and modify a reservation for a raid.
Reflection
Although my initial hunch was that Pokémon GO needed a chat feature to coordinate raids, trades, and other interactions, I’m glad with how my project ended up. There were two instances where I had to pivot for this project: switching the focus to the raid experience and then having to further enhance the add player feature because the feature already existed. When I listened to the users talk about their actual pain points regarding raids I knew that an in-chat feature wouldn’t solve that issue. I can only hope a reservation feature similar to Campfire without having to exit the game and re-enter it will be useful.
Regarding the existing add a friend feature, I think having a similar solution to what Niantic created gave me validation with my solution, but in the future I should do more research to ensure this doesn’t happen again in the future.
This project had some twists and turns, but if I were to continue this project I would want to continue testing how the reservation feature would work. I’d also want to continue discovering ways to add to this amazing game that I’ve been playing since its release.