Case Study Example

Neighbourhood Feature
Building, customising and storytelling with house lots is a big part of the Sims experience for players, but they were limited with access to only one starter house. Initial player survey data indicated that this was a huge pain point and highly sought after feature for many players.
role
Co-UI/ UX Designer with Natasha Hirt​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Deliverables:
• A new neighbourhood map with room to add additional lots in the future
• New purchaseable lots and house templates
• A solution that would allow Sims to be easily moved between lots
• A reworked onboarding experience to teach players how to use the feature
​​​​​​​Timeline
12 weeks from initial concept to live release

APPROACH
We needed a solution that would allow us to deliver new lot options to players and could be scalable for the future, whilst also working with the tech limitations existing in the game (i.e. a 2D map style).

The work was broken into sections before defining our MVP. We decided to focus on greater town customisation and intuitive household management through by adding new purchaseable lots.
Wireframes & User Flow ↘
Prototypes ↘
Solution
The existing starter lot was moved into a new town map location, giving players more lots and houses to build and customise.
We concepted, designed and built all the new UI required to support multiple households. This included a new neighbourhood map screen, the ability to purchase new lots and move Sims between them in the game, a reworked tutorial and all of the key-art and icons for the feature. 

Outcome
The feature was successfully released in 2019 and was well-received by players across our social channels. Within 6 months, 220k players had multiple households and 100k had 3+ households.

When compared with the previous update:
•  18% more players had downloaded the game
•  2% increase in daily players
•  5% increase in players who played for 7 days or more