PROJECT TEAM, FA’24
CornellGo: Manager Portal & Game Features
Redesigned Cornell's scavenger hunt app with gamified elements, making campus exploration more accessible and engaging for students.
TEAM
2 PMs, 1 TPM, 1 APM,
5 developers, 3 designers
ROLE
Product Designer
TIMELINE
Oct. 2024 - Dec. 2024
SKILLS/TOOLS
UX Research, Prototyping, Figma
CONTEXT
CornellGo, developed by Cornell Digital Tech and Innovation, is an app designed to make exploring campus fun through interactive scavenger hunts. It features challenges and journeys that guide users to discover new places. However, the app lacks gamified elements to enhance user engagement and practicality. Before its launch, I collaborated with 3 designers to enable users to take short quizzes after discovering landmarks, complete time-based challenges through the Timed Challenge, and leverage the Manager Portal to create and share custom journeys with personalized routes.
3 New Features
Quizzes 🧠
Timed Challenges ⏰
User Manager Portal 🛠️
Competitor analysis — timed challenge
The Role of Timers in Mobile Gaming
First, I looked into popular mobile games like Fruit Ninja and Brawl Stars to understand how timers are integrated into their gameplay.
Fruit Ninja’s design made the timer highly visible, changing colors as time ran out to create a sense of urgency. Additionally, I liked that it offered extra time at the end of the timer to encourage continued play. In contrast, Brawl Stars featured a more subtle approach, with its floating timer seamlessly integrated into the gameplay. As time ran low, the timer began flashing yellow and red, prompting users to speed up.
Low-fi explorations — timed challenge
After getting inspiration, I created low-fi sketches to envision how the timer could be integrated into the app.
Timer in top header
Cohesive with app’s original design
Hidden
Floating timer
More distinct and visible to users
No timer icon, which limits visual aid
Floating timer w/ icon
More distinct and visible to users
Clock icon helps with visualize
how much time is left
I opted for the floating timer with an accompanying timer icon, as it felt the least intrusive while seamlessly integrating into the game by appearing directly on the map. Including a timer icon also offers users a clear visual aid, helping them easily track how much time remains.
Design iterations — timed challenge
Creating the Mid-Fis
I first visualized what the gameplay could look like when a user uses up all their time.
timer starts countdown
5 minutes left warning
user runs out of time
bonus time
I presented my initial design during a critique session and received valuable feedback. The placement of the timer and the option for users to add time in exchange for points were well-received. However, the feedback also raised some insightful questions:
“What’s the purpose of the timer turning orange? Could there be a more effective way to alert users that time is running out?”
“What’s the primary call-to-action? Are we encouraging users to buy more time?”
“What happens if a player fails to complete the challenge even after adding extra time? Should they start over, skip to the next challenge, or encounter another outcome?”
With these questions, I decided to do a deeper dive into mobile app gameplay. So, I looked into the one of the top-grossing mobile game franchises in the US app stores—Candy Crush Saga.
If users performed well, they earned three stars and an increased score. Conversely, failing to complete the challenge resulted in no stars, requiring users to retry in exchange for a life. Lives could either be replenished over time or purchased using in-game currency.
Observing these varied outcomes, I recognized the importance of tailoring CornellGo’s timer feature to accommodate each user’s unique journey, whether they succeed or fail a challenge.
So, I created 2 user flows:
Flow 1
User runs out of time
Chooses not to buy extra time/is unable to buy extra time
Challenge failed
Earns 0 points
Flow 2
User runs out of time
User chooses to buy extra time
Challenge completed
Some points lost but earns points for completing challenge
And created result screens for both flows:
Flow 1
Failed Challenge
Flow 2
Completed Challenge
Failed Challenge
Completed Challenge
PROblem discovery — quiz
Enhancing the Scavenger Hunt with Interactive and Educational Moments
The current user journey in our app lacks an engaging, educational element at each location. Instead of simply receiving a prompt and moving to the next challenge, we could introduce interactive quizzes or intriguing facts to enhance user engagement and deepen their connection to the journey.
Competitor analysis — quiz
Making Question-Answering Fun and Educational: How Competitors Are Doing It
Exploring how Kahoot!, Duolingo, and Trivia Crack are enhancing user engagement through interactive learning.
Competitors like Kahoot! boost engagement by awarding points and showcasing rankings on leaderboards, while Duolingo enhances learning by showing correct answers with explanations. Trivia Crack takes it a step further with interactive animations, making the experience both entertaining and educational.
Low-fi explorations — quiz
I created low-fidelity sketches to develop my feature ideation, drawing on competitor insights to guide visual exploration.
After further envisioning what my solutions could look like, I created the wireframes below.
Category Spin
Interactive
Time consuming
Low feasibility
Multi-Input
Skip Questions
Various input types, including multiple choice, short response, and numeric.
Less engaging
Earning rewards
Shuffle between questions
Indication of rewards
Indication of progress
Multiple questions
Considering the feasibility and impact of these three solutions, I decided to move forward with quiz feature with...
Earning rewards
It best addresses the problem by enhancing comprehension and encouraging active engagement with the content. By incorporating reward-earning options, users are incentivized to answer questions correctly, boosting their leaderboard points—already a key feature of the CornellGO app. This approach motivates users to actively participate and reinforces educational value by rewarding correct answers, deepening their connection to the experience while aligning with the app’s core gamified elements.
Design iterations — quiz
Choosing a modal upon answering a question correctly.
During my initial exploration, I sought feedback in weekly design critiques. My peers liked the confetti idea, as it evoked positive emotions, and they enjoyed earning points along with the leaderboard to indicate success. One area for improvement was the placement of the 'leave' button, as its target size was too small and it was placed awkwardly right under another call-to-action button, the point breakdown.
So with this insight, I create the following revisions:
Choosing shuffle button placement.
Prominent
Unclear placement
(shuffling questions
or answers)
Clear question shuffle indication
Clear shuffle count
Diverts attention from the question
Consistent with platform
Clear shuffle count
Signifying hints
It is the most intuitive option for users due to its proximity to the question. The other two options may cause confusion about whether they shuffle the answer choices or the question, as well as the indication of a hint versus a shuffle.
Final prototype — quiz
Finally, after revisions, introducing the quiz feature:
Test your knowledge, uncover intriguing facts about the locations you visit, and level up on the leaderboard!
user research — user manager portal
Understanding the User
To better understand users' needs and goals for this new feature, my team and I conducted interviews with 10 students, focusing on both student organization leaders and general Cornell students.
our interview questions
interview insights
From these interviews we gathered 3 key user insights:
Central Organization
Interesting places are shared via Instagram or chats, but lack a central organization to help revisit.
Event Planning
Users want locations for event planning and route calculation to save time and effort.
Customization
Users want customization features like templates, uploading photos, and location recommendations.
creating the user persona — user manager portal
Meet Katherine, a Cornell freshman and active CornellGo user.
Core Needs
Wants to see other people’s recommendations
Explore new places on Cornell’s campus
🤲
Painpoints
🤕
Lack of motivation to explore new places
Lack of comprehensive instructions to find the ideal locations
Here’s what the manager portal user flow looks like for users like Katherine:
low-fi explorations — user manager portal
Working as a team of 3 designers, we each created low-fidelity sketches to illustrate our individual visions for the manager portal's design.
We identified commonalities across our sketches, such as including a map for location selection and event details customization, and merged our low-fidelity designs to create a cohesive version.
landing page
creating journey
location selection
details of location
location selection
finish selections
review & publish
invite
CURRENT MID-FI — user manager portal
Due to time constraints and extensive user interviews, we were only able to complete some key features in their mid-fidelity state. We plan to continue iterating, bringing the design to critique, and conducting user testing before reaching high fidelity.
Design System
Bringing CornellGO’s brand to life: playful, exciting, and inviting!
A strong design system plays a vital role in project efficiency. Joining the team this semester, I found that CornellGO’s design system was already well-established, which made my onboarding process much smoother. I’ve been focusing on ensuring that the designs align with the system while making small tweaks based on accessibility guidelines. These adjustments will ensure a more cohesive experience and support a streamlined workflow for future designers!
Reflection and next steps
It’s been such a rewarding semester, and here are my key takeaways from designing CornellGO:
Getting Development Feedback Early
Seeking feedback from developers early helps identify potential challenges and ensures design ideas are feasible, leading to smoother execution and fewer obstacles during development.
Simple Concepts Aren’t Always Easy to Execute
Designing for intuition requires constant iteration and careful planning. Even straightforward concepts demand thorough testing and adjustment to ensure that they deliver a seamless and functional user experience.
Never Fear Critique
Critique offers opportunities for growth by challenging assumptions and refining ideas. Embracing feedback drives the design forward and ensures the final product aligns with user needs and expectations
Designing this scavenger hunt experience involved close collaboration with developers and two other designers. It gave me a deeper understanding of development feasibility, allowed me to integrate more interactions with our cute bear, Niki, and reinforced my appreciation for the feedback received during design critiques. I’m super excited about the launch of CornellGO and will be actively involved in ensuring that the design aligns with our vision and meets the needs of our users.