RESEARCH

In the world of mobile gaming, researching competitors capitalizes on their investment in the product whether it is testing, UX improvements, and more. To get a baseline for a “triple A” friend system, I broke down the flow of Microsoft’s “People” tab on the Xbox UI.

With millions of users and an incredibly robust social system developed over the years, analyzing Xbox’s Friend system allows me to glean proven interaction patterns and features that may have gone missing. I won’t take game design docs as the final word until I’ve done my own homework.

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

In a perfect world, UX patterns in VR would be established as industry wide best practices. However, because of the continual evolution of VR and the different needs of the product, they are more varied. A simple example of this is wildly different philosophies of handling Tutorials in VR. Beat Saber gives an optional tutorial that can be skipped. Echo VR has a of series pass/fail levels for each game mechanic. Star Wars: Vader Immortal has no traditional tutorial and throws the player directly into the experience.

Goal

By reviewing other VR games and apps in the marketplace, we can better understand how they solved (for better or worse) the same feature we are developing. I purposefully limited my research to VR games and chose an assortment of different genres in order to experience firsthand a common “baseline” of ease, comfort, delight, and immersion. While my research was focused on Multiplayer Friend systems, some did not have a Multiplayer or an independent friend system.

My observations come from the products listed below:

• Star Trek: Bridge Crew (Co-op)

• Path of the Warrior (Brawler)

• VR Chat (Social)

• Big Screen (Social)

• Tsario (Puzzle)

• Beat Saber (Rhythm)

• Star Wars: Vader Immortal (Experience)

• Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (Shooter)

• Blaston (Competitive Shooter)

Blaston (Competitive Shooter)

Multiplayer Options: Quickplay, Create Server, Join Via Code

• No internal Friends system, leans on Oculus/Code Share. Are codes an easy way of sidestepping investment into Multiplayer more robust options?

• Like Beat Saber, no “Copy” and “Paste” buttons for the code. These buttons are seen in mobile games/commence websites to eliminate typing codes by hand.

VR Chat (Social)

No multiplayer, but social app used to chat

• This popular app boasts an incredible amount of users interacting in VR on a daily basis

• Player options easy to access via selection of their 3D avatar

• Extremely messy, but robust options all in one place when selecting a player

• Has a private and customizable 3D “Home” room separate from the public Lobby

• Lobby Social Tab is large, easy to read and navigate list of players

• Social Tab has two methods to scroll: arrow buttons and dragging on list

Star Trek: Bridge Crew (Co-op)

Multiplayer Options: Quickmatch and Custom Lobby

• No internal Friends system, requires an Ubisoft account to manage invites/friend requests. No Oculus, Code Share, or Facebook support. Horrible!

• No Friend search, you must log in on Ubisoft’s website to perform searches and then add

• No ability to remove or block Friends. Again, you must login to Ubisoft’s website

• No online indicators and the “Join Friend’s Game” option is misleading

• Ubisoft friend options are split apart on the left and right, making the layout unintuitive

COMPARATIVE RESEARCH

Similar to a Post Mortem, comparative research reviews the successes and failures of a feature and starts conversations on how to learn from them. This is valuable whether the project is a new brand game or an update to an existing one as past assumptions can muddle the overall direction.

The current version of Echo VR’s Friend system has many of the same options seen in competitor products, but also a few more because of its focus on multiplayer. I mapped out the current social flow for Echo VR to identify overlap, gaps, and problems. Creating this flow also helps build the foundation for the new flows I will propose.

Breakdown of Echo VR

Multiplayer Online: Quickmatch (Find Arena), Simulation, Vs. AI

The Good

• Cool factor - diegetic menus are contained within the fiction

• Aesthetically clean and free of clutter

• Some icons are easy to understand

• Text is large and easy to read

The Bad

• Options are hidden within diegetic wrist menu slider. In-world instructional posters are easily missed (banner blindness)

• Hard to add/invite Friends without being forced to go into menus

• Tablet’s limited size impacts ability to quickly scan lists and add more content in the future

• Hard to parse Tab location as icons and text are vertically separated

• Confusing color use for menus and confirmation buttons(blue/orange)

• No visible change on slideout when moving selections between players

• Tapping player entry opens slideout, tapping again does nothing instead of closing

• Poor highlight state when selecting players in Lobby, conflicting with other highlight states (gray/gold)

• Player entries have indicators for activated toggles, but missing audio icons indicating who is speaking

• Poor online indicator status (text only vs. indicator dot and text)

• HUD - Active audio icon hard to read (white vs. green)

• Inconsistent and confusing use of slideouts and information overlays on menus

• No scroll bar indicating length of list

• Stats - Inconsistent player information vs HUD: missing arena level and player badge

• Stats - New Players without any match history do not display stat titles or “-“ for missing values

• Stats – No “chunking” of stats into separate groupings, just a long hard to parse list

Conversations with Players

I visited all three of Echo VR’s lobbies to ask questions to any player who was willing to listen about the current Friend system. I explained I was “new” and asked them if they had any ideas on how it could be improved. I targeted players who had high Arena levels because they would be most familiar with the game. Below are a few quotes:

“Ya, the current menu is hard to find for new people. It’s hidden on your arm.” – 1VprByte

“I think it’s pretty easy (current state), but I think that there are plenty of things you could do to make it better…What if you had to fist bump someone and it would be like: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then you add them?” - cadenf

“And it (VR Chat) like gives you a bunch of things. You can mute them, you can ghost them, all personally instead of having to go: on the tablet, name, orange thing, and then having like nothing.”  - P0tato_man

“They could put it up all that information onto one of the big screens (in the Lobby) instead of the small tablet thing.” – Russianhtmn-BBX

Key Takeaways

While not 100% obvious to access at first, the Arm Computer tablet fits nicely into the fiction. However, adding friends requires tablet access, which is a lost opportunity for something more intuitive. The tablet itself is too small, forcing you to scroll or deal with slideouts and overlays when navigating instead of a larger display with information readily accessible.

USER FLOWS/CONCEPTS

Below are three user flows of the ideas that I had while researching. You’ll notice that I’ve also included reference images to sell the “feel” of what the player should experience in the new UX.

ID Card

This idea was meant to mirror the exchange of business cards in real life. Each player would have an infinitely respawning ID card embedded under their wrist. Handing a copy to another player allows them to inspect a collapsed view of the ID card with the option to expand it for more detail. Accepting/rejecting a friend request can be done either on the UI of ID card itself or on the HUD. For the HUD, bringing the ID card inward to player’s chest accepts and dropping it rejects.

Table Commander

I’ve observed many Echo VR players enthusiastically playing with the toys scattered all over the lobby. The delight of tactile play led me to consider using it within the social system. My idea was to have two entry points for the menu: one on center console in the middle of the lobby (similar to the match stations) and the second using the familiar Arm Computer.

Whatever the entry point friend requests and party creation would use drag and drop of 3D avatars. Dragging avatars above the Social menu would add a new friend, accept friend requests, accept party invites or create a party if already a friend.  Dragging avatars below would reject friend requests, remove an existing friend or decline a party invite. These options can also be handled individually by simply opening a player’s profile.

Webslinger

Taking a page from competitors, this idea adds an additional tool to the wrists of players that can be used to quickly inspect and add players. Using either Oculus controller’s trigger button, the player can activate a laser beam, point to another player, and quickly access their player profile. Once opened, the player can then decide what actions they wish to take on the selected player profile.

Conclusions

While the first two flows, ID Card and Table Commander, have promise they don’t necessarily meet the needs of Echo VR.

Because of the fast paced nature of the game where players rocket around the lobby, handing another player an ID card doesn’t seem to make sense as it slows things down. I also worry the initial collapsed view of the ID card will be made irrelevant as the expanded view opened shortly after being given. One could suggest throwing the ID card to another player much like the disc, but that turns a straight forward action into gameplay and confusing the intent.

Table Commander offers drag and drop to manage players and parties, but the repeated physical actions may lead to unnecessary fatigue. Also, the drag and drop seems more appropriate for a game that has strategy elements where position and assignment are key.

Web Slinger is the best choice as it can keep up with players zipping around and quickly presents a robust amount of options in one menu. The fact other games share this same interaction shows that this option is worthy of exploration.

WIREFRAMES

Adobe XD prototype: Presentation Link

Profile Card

• The player selects the invite at the top of the Social pane, and the player profile card slides into view

• After accepting the party invite, the Social pane displays the entire party at the top of the list with the party leader and members indicated by inline icons.

• The Large buttons on the party leader’s player profile card change to Add Friend and Leave Party

VISUAL DESIGN

And lastly, here is the visual design for the Challenge.