Enhancing the Artle game experience on Mobile Devices
Background
Artle is a an innovative art puzzle by the National Gallery of Art created to help art enthusiasts explore new artists and foster daily engagement in and interactive puzzle format.
Since it’s launch, Artle has garnered over six million plays by one million individuals worldwide.
The game offers players a unique opportunity to explore the museum’s extensive collection and engage with art in an interactive way. With its vast array of artworks, ranging from paintings to sculptures, Artle serves as a virtual gateway to the world of art and creativity.
My Role:
- Structuring & conducting usability tests
- Analysing and ideating recommendations with the team
- Creating the Pre & Post-test questionnaires
- Designing the final slide deck
- Participating in client discussions
- Contributing to our Usability Testing Report
Task
The goal of this project was to assist the client’s bigger game strategy of attracting new audiences to their website through a roster engaging game experiences.
We partnered with the NGA(National Gallery of Art) to conduct user testing of the Artle game to enhance it’s game interface on mobile devices. We identified key areas for improvement and suggested enhancements that would make playing the game a more enjoyable experience.
After an extremely insightful kick-off meeting with the product team at Artle, we defined the key areas we need to focus on, leading us to the following statement.
The Problem Statement:
How might we enhance the user experience of the Artle mobile game & its’s past games
repository to make it an enjoyable art discovery experience for both new and returning
users.
Action
Following are the steps we undertook to go about enhancing the Artle game experience.
1.
Secondary Research & Competitive Analysis:
In this initial step, we analysed games similar to Artle. Games that fall in the same category of gameplay experiences such as Wordle, Sudoku, Qwordle & Crossword. Further we analysed the gameplay experience of similar art discovery games such as Art Quiz and Google Arts.
Puzzle & art games similar to Artle
2.
Defining our Target User:
Our target audience for this usability study included Fun Seekers, New Users, Art Affiliates, and Mobile users.
Description of our target User Persona
3.
Moderated user testing:
This stage of our process included the following steps:
Stages of our Usability Testing process
Recruitment
To recruit participants from these groups, we shared a screening questionnaire with the Pratt Institute community via email and through our Instagram stories. We filtered participants based on their interest in puzzle games, the device of their choice, art interest, and their involvement
in the arts/museum scene.
This set of shortlisted users covered four key target groups the client wanted to solve for. Namely the Fun Seekers, New Users, Art Affiliates and Mobile users.
Based on their responses, we invited 11 participants for a moderated User Testing session where we observed how they go about playing through the Artle game on a mobile device.
Pre & Post-test questionnaires
The pre-test questionnaire aimed to capture user demographics such as age, gender, and occupation, while the post-test focused on collecting insights into thoughts, opinions, and behaviours. Both surveys included a mix of open-ended inquiries and rating scale assessments.
I conducted two Usability Testing sessions, one with a student affiliated with Art/Museum scene and one with a Museum professional & Art educator. Post all our usability tests, we analysed data collected from the recordings and pre & post-test questionnaires, and came up with the following recommendations.
Dive deeper into these questionnaires, responses and usability tasks in the in-depth Usability Testing Report here:
Artle Usability Testing Report
Insights & Recommendations
Based on our analysis from the User Testing sessions, we recommended the following changes to the Artle game experience:
Recommendation 1: Making the Past Games of the past games button
Problem:
Users found the ‘Play Past Games’ distracting and assumed it was a promotional advertisement.
“This button looks like some sort of ad because of the visual and banner”
- User 4
Solution:
The ‘Play past games’ has been tweaked to ensure it doesn’t look like a promotional advertisement in the game interface. Further, based on our insights, we moved the placement of this large 'Past Game' button, since it’s location and large size was taking the user’s attention away from the gameplay experience.
Recommendation 2: Optimise the ‘How to Play’ Feature
Problem:
The existing How to Play button at the top was not immediately prominent, leaving the users guessing how to play the game, resulting in a poor game experience.
The existing pop-up that
appears on opening the
game page.
How to play Button is not
prominent.
The existing how to play
modal.
Solution:
This two pronged solution was recommended to help the users quickly understand how the game works. First, we suggested a short ‘how to play’ section within the initial pop-up dialog box that appears at the start.
Next, we suggested a completely redesigned ‘How to Play’ modal window with graphic elements, should the user need more information on how the game works.
Through these solutions, the initial confusion surrounding gameplay was addressed. Users are now better guided through the game mechanics, which should lead to a more satisfying gameplay experience.
Recommendation 3: Improve Display of Artist Information
Problem:
The game aims to educate its players about art & artists. But based on our analysis, our users expressed a desire for more detailed artist information post-game, often leaving the site to find it.
Providing artist information right within the game interface to help users with all the information about the artworks & artist without jumping off from the game.
Solution:
In response to this problem of users jumping off the game, we recommend providing this
information within the game interface. Following the completion of the game, users now encounter
an end-game pop-up providing details about the artist and the four artworks featured in the game.
This ensures that players can seamlessly transition from the gaming experience to learning about
the artist and their creations.
Recommendation 4: Optimise Feedback Mechanism for Filtering on the Past Games Page
Problem:
Users appreciate the filters on the Past Games page. But the, lack of clear feedback on selecting
the desired filters leaves the user confused i.e. there is no visibility of system status when users
select their desired filters.
Adding an ‘Apply Filters’ button makes it more intuitive to explore the past games page.
Solution:
Here, we proposed a simple improvement in the form of an ‘Apply Filters’ button to the filter section
which would make navigation, filtering and engagement with past games more user-friendly.
Recommendation 5: Introduce New Gamification features to make the gameplay more intuitive
Problem:
At least 4 of our 11 users found it difficult to understand how the game works.
“Making it more engaging and make it feel like a game. And not just a search engine”
-User 8
Solution:
We changed the format of the Artle game. Implementing a familiar format inspired from games like
Wordle and Hangman makes the game intuitive and immediately familiar.
Taking inspiration from games like Wordle & Hangman to make the game immediately recognisable.
Taking cues from our usability sessions, this intuitive game format along with an easy to understand
‘How to Play’ module would make the game easily understandable, especially for new users.
Conclusion & Next Steps:
The Artle product team at NGA was thrilled with our in-depth approach. We were able to give them a fresh take on the usability issues of the Artle game. It was exciting to see these recommendations spur additional ideas to further enhance the Artle Gameplay experience.
Further recommendations included:
Adding a confetti animation when users successfully identify the artists. This simple but effective addition would add some much needed delight factor to Artle.
Adding more filters to the Past Games page that would help users effectively browse this page, thereby keeping them engaged with the Artle game for a longer duration.
I hope to see the Artle team at the National Gallery of Art implement these recommendations to Game, thereby make it a gratifying and enjoyable experience that helps them bring greater visibility to the artists & the artworks in their collection & at their partner museums across the country. Further, I hope these recommendations increase the number of new & returning users to the Artle game.
Appendix:
You can find the final Client Presentation here:
Artle Slide Deck
You can find the in-depth Usability Testing Report here:
Artle Usability Testing Report