Art Director
IU/UX Product Designer
The Roulette Client has been the driving force of the Company since the beginning, it’s a product that almost all customers use with all kinds of devices and in different ways. It has been the platform for the customer to engage with our Live Games as seen on Sky, ITV and Channel 5 for more than 10 years.
In 2018 the company decided it was time to update the roulette experience with a new version of its digital interactive game platform. Being the main income stream for the company it was super important to tackle all angles of the project, with all teams on board we decided to roll up our sleeves and go all in.
We faced three challenges:
One: Outdated functionalities, Our roulette client offer many functionalities that were developed 10 years ago and they don’t stand up to date with the modern style of playing roulette.
Two: We were by no means first to see (or seize) the opportunity. Several companies were ahead of us in producing quality products. This had the effect of pushing the designs to a high-quality standard of functionalities keeping in mind the familiarity of the current one for our players.
Three: We knew that our design had to be modular so that we could offer additional features, upgrades and customisation.
As Head of Design, it was important for me to understand the mindsets of the product frequent users and VIP users. I wanted to know what functionalities interested them, and how they interact with the platform.
Research We compiled a comprehensive analysis of the most popular, Roulette Clients on the UK Marketplace, and elsewhere on the web. Before long, we had a sizable list of findings, which we then categorised into for design and development. This research helps us to create an actionable benchmark, complete with a checklist for post-design and development assessment.
Before embarking on the design, we worked to understand what unique offering the service could provide. By testing UX journeys with users, we challenged them to describe, compare and evaluate the product against those of our competitors. From this, I was able to better understand the most applicable use cases for the product, as well as the relationship between the requirements and the UX.
With data indicating mobile and tablet use to be outperforming the desktop site, we designed the product to be responsive and consistent at low data speeds for everyone, from the high-end to the low-end of the mobile market. Features of the UX were progressively enhanced, depending on the device it was displayed on, to give the best experience available. Introducing security measures (HTTPS) was also a necessity in protecting the privacy of customers.
True to our design process, we then produced low-fi wireframes. We focus on every component independently to make sure we were offering the best experience with each of them and how they interact with each other. These wireframes created an overview of the product, linking user journeys with clear navigation points and calls to action. The wireframes also served as a tool for presenting to diverse stakeholders and test-case users.
Part of my responsibilities was to create the design system for the client, using Invision, Adobe XD and Sketch I created a new Branding Style for all brands, taking in consideration that we wanted to launch a brand-refreshment of all 3 UK brands I needed to create a new Brand style to be used across all products. This was especially challenging as everything needed to be ready for deployment at the same time. This is why it was very important to define new brand colours and typographies on an early stage to start preparing all products (including Live TV Graphics).
I produced numerous designs to test a variety of prototypes with the target audience. From continuous iteration of the design based on user feedback, the final product was able to adapt to fit the changing categories of content and unite the service experience across Android, iOS and the web.
The key design requirement was to enhance the experience of our players and update all features of the game to make it easier and faster and broaden the available options to use. With this in mind, the roulette client was designed in a modular way, making it quick and easy for future updates as needed.
In its first year in the Roulette Games revenue exceeded our target by 37% and the amount of returning roulette players increased by 25%.
The launch of the new Client was accompanied by a big marketing campaign promoting the new software including TV advertisement, these efforts contributed to new sign-ups increasing by more than 20% during the first 6 months.
