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Talarius is the largest operator of adult gaming centres in Britain. Whilst their main bricks-and-mortar brand is Quicksilver they also owned a profitable online gaming site called cyberslotz.co.uk. Talarius wanted to relaunch cyberslotz.co.uk as quicksilvergames.co.uk and extend the library of games to include bingo games.
My first step was a competitor review that looked at audience segmentation, functionality, and ease of use. The review showed that many of the games across the sites were essentially reskins of generic products that all offered the same functionality. Whilst Cyberslotz had an advantage in its catalogue of exclusive games, the best way to differentiate the new site would be improving user journeys around the games, as opposed to within the games.
With a large existing library, and plans to add many more games, it was important to develop a simple framework of template models that a user could easily recognise as giving predictable functionality anywhere in the gaming inventory. These modules included featured games panels, recent winners panels and promo panels, all designed to get you to to Quicksilver’s exclusive, higher margin, games. I also specified sortable datagrids to show larger amounts of games deeper within the inventory.
Another key differentiation opportunity was to do with documentation. Whilst all of the games had documentation, it needed to be exposed and reworked to be more accessible to new gamers. Now every game displayed in a featured game panel or a datagrid has a link below the game creative, taking you straight to information on how to play the game.
As well as helping pitch, I also conducted a half-day client workshop which covered information architecture and and interaction design. My final deliverable was a functional specification which was used by Talarius’s development team in Romania. The specification covered the UX vision, information architecture and interaction design in the form of site maps, user journeys, and annotated wireframes for every instance of each module on every template.
Whilst I was contracted as a User Experience Architect, I was asked to give guidance on implementation that covered coding standards and accessibillity. My background in interface development makes it easy for me “span roles” and give my clients more.
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