INDUSTRY PROJECT W/ ELECTRONIC ARTS

EA Creator Hub

A gaming content creator platform for managing and monitoring business analytics, including advertisements, growth and revenue, and upcoming gaming streams.

Project Overview

As part of BrainStation’s Industry Project, our industry partner, Electronic Arts, posed a problem for 3 teams consisting of 3 UX designers, 2 web developers, and 1 data science student to participate in a 1-week long hackathon. The EA CREATOR HUB was created to serve as a multi-functional platform for gaming content creators to utilize to improve their brand, manage their daily tasks as a streamer, and grow to become successful. In this prototype, our user is able to see the “expiring ad" alert, view which specific ad needs attention, and have the option to renew.

TYPE

ACADEMIC, MAR 2023

ROLE
UX RESEARCHER, DESIGN STRATEGY,

UX/UI DESIGNER

TIMELINE
1 WEEK

TOOLS
FIGMA/FIGJAM

PROBLEM SPACE

In a world of growing content creators…

the gaming industry is nothing short of content made by individuals in their own home that have dedicated their time to grow their own business doing what they love: gaming! Esports has become a worldwide sporting event that garners millions of viewers from all over the globe, and in order to assist growing creators and their content streams, there is a lack of resources for independent gamers to grow a following, build a community, and grow their business as a gaming content creator.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

Building a Strong Community

After going through some secondary research articles, many gaming creators have a common problem of finding success online while broadcasting their content. While most creators stream their content on platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook while monetizing on their platforms, the real issue many creators have is building and maintaining a long-lasting community while staying relevant and engaging. While all creators in general have their own unique personalities, the commonality between those who are successful and those who are not as popular depends on their humor and quirkiness.

  • ABP Live (2022), “5 Ways Gaming Content Creators Can Influence Product Sales And Build Consumer Trust”

    • People want authentic content, to be able to interact with the gamers and to hold strong entertainment value

    • Being able to create a deep connection with your followers will allow you to build a “trust factor” and will allow you to find avenues to monetize your content

    • Building a loyal fan base, creating authentically, and interacting with followers will garner success

  • Game World Observer (2022), “7 ways gaming streamers monetize their content”

    • Profits come through donations, affiliate and partner programs, subscriptions, “Twitch bits”, ads, selling in-game items, and sponsorships

    • With the right amount of followers and sponsorships, streamers can effectively become full-time gaming content creators

  • Faster Capital (2023), “Gaming Content Creation: A Lucrative Niche for Gaming Industry ETFs”

    • Viewers can engage directly with their favorite creators, creating a more intimate and interactive experience

    • The power of collaboration and community drives success

    • The online-streaming gaming industry has presented a lucrative opportunity for investors to capitalize on the growing popularity of gaming content creation

As the industry of online streaming and gaming grows exponentially, gaming content creators must be able to build a strong foundation by having a strong loyal fan base and community to ultimately become successful.

HOW MIGHT WE

How might we help gaming content creators become successful?

PERSONA

Introducing Sally the Streamer…

Our persona, Sally, is a fairly new gaming content creator (CC) who lacks experience growing a wide fan base, has no agent or manager, does not have a central source of personal gaming analytics, and does not currently manage her relationships with her community and brands well.

Her goal is to build a strong community, understand her own gaming and streaming analytics in order to monetize efficiently and grow her overall income through partnerships, brand deals, partnerships, and advertising.

So, how can we help Sally?

After deliberating with the other UX designers on the team and software engineers to come to a compromise on what we could create within the time limit we had, we created the

EA CREATOR HUB -

a gaming content creator platform for managing and monitoring business analytics, including advertisements, growth and revenue, and upcoming gaming streams.

HIGH FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

For the best view and experience, please view the prototype on a computer browser.

KEY LEARNINGS

Takeaways from this experience…

There is a lot to learn from your peers -

Working with other disciplines such as software engineers and data analysts may seem completely foreign, however, working in a cross-functional team allowed me to learn that our creations may be limited to our skillset at times. This only inspires me to think out of the box and get creative!

Trusting the research -

While it is easy to draft up an idea for a problem I may think there may be an easy solution, the research ultimately shows what the true pain points of the user are, especially in an industry that I am not familiar with. I am exposed to tons of content creators and gamers in my every day life, however I do not truly understand what they really need to be successful, and thankfully the deep dive in research my team and I conducted allowed us to find a solution that may be helpful for future gaming content creators to become successful.