Boost PC

overview

The objective of this project was to enhance the pathfinding experience, empowering users to select their preferred route type while also mitigating the risk of server overload.

company

WTFast

Role

Product Designer

Contributions

I woked from end-to-end project, responsible for research, interviews, redesign of the new layout and iteration.

Background

WTFast is a SaaS company, founded in 2009 beucase of the first-hand experience with high ping times, rubberbanding, and packet loss. The company has the objective to help gamers to face the challenges with game networking worldwide

I joined the company in Feb/2023 as the first Product Designer. I was responsible for the two main products in the company, also the website and creating and maintaining the design system.

As Product Designer in this project, I worked closely to the PM and development team, from the design strategy, research, user interview, prototyping and usability testing.

Understanding the project

Context

Boost PC is the main product in WTFast company. The software has the objective to provide any gamer a smooth experience during their game session and don't worry about geographic boundaries.

How the product works?
‍WTFast’s patented game-network optimization tech provides a smooth and fast gameplay on game servers around the world, without any unnecessary encryption slowing down. The company leverage their proprietary algorithm and a global network of servers to identify and build the quickest route to your game server at any given moment.

The problem

WTFast servers were becoming overloaded due to the excessive duplication of routes following identical paths unnecessarily.

The Solution

The solution involved creating two additional types of routes and redesigning the user flow to ensure a consistent and streamlined pathfinding experience.

Design process

Immersion and research

Research

During this process I needed to figure how the platform works in the background and talk to the team to understand product's limitations.

During this phase, the primary focus was on navigating the user flow, gathering insights from various teams to comprehend the platform's backend operations, identifying any existing gaps, and conducting an analysis of past data, including Hotjar sessions and previous surveys.

Interviews

After finishing the research, I still had some questions and decided to conduct user interviews. The research showed that the platform had some layout gaps and unclear elements, and most users weren't using the manual route.

The goal of these interviews was to confirm some of the research findings and understand why users preferred the automatic route over the manual one.

Some value information obtained from interviews:

The create account flow was a bit inconsistent. Most part of the users download the solution and don’t create an account;
No option to upgrade your subscription from freemium to premium inside the platform;
Some users didn’t know how to use manual mode and only play in auto mode. We didn’t have tips or a onboarding/walkthrough to help the users during this process.
The connection improvement wasn't clear for some users and this was pointed as a reason to churn;
The value of the solution wasn't clear for some users, also pointed as one of the reasons to churn;
Users starting and stopping sessions for no reason, presenting gaming sessions with less than 20 seconds.

Ideation

After pinpointing the issues, I collaborated closely with the product manager to prioritize urgent tasks and identify limitations. While some problems required straightforward UI improvements, others demanded more substantial effort.

To manage our workload effectively, we opted to address quicker tasks and minor UI corrections first, allowing us to allocate more time to tackle complex solutions and conduct additional research as needed.

New user flow

We redesigned the user flow to streamline actions, remove back-and-forth navigation between account creation and gameplay, and minimize interruptions that could prompt frequent app exits. Using Figjam, we ensured easy access, commenting, and adjustment capabilities for seamless collaboration.

Prototyping

Because Boost PC is a well stablished software, we were able to work with high fidelity prototyping immediately. For the final screens we needed to update some of the components and create new components that could match the actual visual identity.

In a nutshell, the perfect flow for WTFast users while using Bost PC would be:

Final Screens

Pathfinding experience

We faced a major challenge with the auto and manual route options. Many users avoided the manual route due to a misunderstanding of its function.

This feature allows users to customize their path by selecting specific servers, but users struggled to grasp that the order of server selection determines the path. Moreover, many users only chose one location.

Results

Since the implementation of the new redesign of Boost PC we have seen a significant decrease in the number of complaints lodged through the service desk.

Additionally, I have received positive feedback from users about the simplified configuration of the routes for their new game sessions. Also, we were able to see a decrease in the number of short sessions.

23%

Less tickets in
Customer Support

14%

More accounts
created

61%

Less short sessions

Increase NPS score