Role
Michelle Chen (Design Owner)
Katherine Joplin (Design Lead)
Laura Tran (PM)
Adam Harris (Engineer)
Megan Chang (Engineer)
Timothy Biley (QA)
Explore
Timeline
November 2022 - February 2023
Overview
Seasonal and battle pass content is a big part of the refreshed Overwatch 2 game. To prepare for the launch of Season 3, we wanted to re-evaluate what might be the best way to surface up this information to new, current, and returning players.
Discover
Understanding how the Overwatch website can present players with more detailed seasonal and battle pass content information.
Problem Statement
How might we present seasonal content and battle pass information to better inform players of new updates compared to the current experience of only web blogs?
Research Methods
1. Competitive Analysis and Interview
2. Current Experience Audit and User Survey
3. Live Workshop
Competitive Analysis and Interview
We researched games that have battle pass and found that competitors tend to have information about battle pass tiers, virtual currency, rewards, and a FAQ section. We also conducted internal interviews with the COD team as they are also under the Activision brand to learn more about their battle pass pages.
Current Experience Audit
Through usability studies to test the live site and taking a look at data, we found that users had a hard time parsing the current seasonal blogs to find the information that they would need such as battle pass price(s), new content updates, and more.
User Survey
We also sent out an internal survey to learn about user preferences and needs related to discovering information about seasons.
Live Workshop
I also co-hosted a one day workshop with designers and PMs where the objective was to understand seasonal content and battle passes together, propose scalable and maintainable solutions, and create visual artifacts we can share and discuss with the wider team and stakeholders.
Through a collaborative group jam, we were able to meld the strongest ideas together into our collective proposal for a season template that could be used not only for Overwatch but also other Blizzard game sites.
Define
Identifying the right features for both types of players to understand the season and battle pass model.
Content Priority and Features
From research and workshop insights, we were able to come up with a general season template that would work on any game site.
The season templates would be styled using in-game season themes and proposed features would be:
1. Sections dedicated to explaining battle pass types, key battle pass items, new heroes/maps, events/game modes.
2. Comparison table to help players understand pricing structure and provide a call to action.
3. An FAQ section.
Explore
Designing a flexible and maintainable template for upcoming Overwatch seasons.
Layout Explorations
With the research insights, I was able to quickly explore various low-fidelity options for ways to display the already chosen content and features.
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Mid-Fidelity Prototypes
With the timeline in mind, we opted to go with a MVP variation of the layout for the Season 3 announcement and could add or remove sections after taking a look at the data after launching. Utilizing the structure, I started theming the layout for further feedback from our stakeholders.
Materialize
Creating a reusable theming pattern.
Visuals and Wireframes
For Season 3, Overwatch partnered with the One Punch Man anime. For Season 4, Overwatch announced a new hero and events. We were able to showcase these fun highlights for each season throughout the page utilizing the flexible card, carousel, and accordion sections.
Overall, the template can flexibly support all types of copy and asset content and is fairly easy to maintain.
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Content Guidelines
Through continuous feedback and discussions with Creative Services, we were also able to create content guidelines with asset specifications that would facilitate the hand-off of content management from our team to their team for future seasons.
Deliver
The Overwatch 2 season 3 page resulted in an increase in download and battle pass conversion. Standardized season templates allowed us to more quickly support acquisition focused releases.
Takeaways
One of my favorite parts of this project was being able to co-host a workshop with the whole team where I was able to strengthen my ability to facilitate a larger meeting, present research insights in a digestible way, and organize different ideas into an effective proposal.
It was also an amazing opportunity to design an experience that is able to get players hyped and to support all the big seasonal beats that Overwatch 2 is continuously coming out with.
You can check out the live site here!
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Next Steps
With every season, we are continuously iterating on ways to improve the template to better facilitate players finding the necessary information about seasons and battle pass. Every season has a new theme which is also an opportunity to keep the page visually fresh and exciting for players visiting our site.