Hollywood Casino • ESPN BET • theScore Bet / Casino

Hollywood Casino • ESPN BET • theScore Bet / Casino

Senior Product Designer

Senior Product Designer

PLATFORMS

DELIVERABLE

iOS

iOS

SUMMARY

SUMMARY

The visioning project was presented to the CEO and board of directors of Penn Entertainment, which immediately led to prioritizing major features from it on the roadmap.

The visioning project was presented to the CEO and board of directors of Penn Entertainment, which immediately led to prioritizing major features from it on the roadmap.

Overview + Goals

Overview + Goals

The iCasino future state project was born out of taking initiative to identify strategic areas to improve and to fine tune of the visual + interaction design for the casino user’s experience.

Across three months, my user research counterpart and I formulated the strategy and built designs for the future state of three closely related but disparate apps — Hollywood Casino, ESPN Bet, and theScoreBet / Casino.

Our primary goal was to present this work to product, design, and research leadership and get at least one major feature on the product roadmap. Our secondary goal was to at least present this work to our XFN leadership and get conversations going on how to further specialize our features, even if some work didn’t make it to the roadmap.

The iCasino future state project was born out of taking initiative to identify strategic areas to improve and to fine tune of the visual + interaction design for the casino user’s experience.

Across three months, my user research counterpart and I formulated the strategy and built designs for the future state of three closely related but disparate apps — Hollywood Casino, ESPN Bet, and theScoreBet / Casino.

Our primary goal was to present this work to product, design, and research leadership and get at least one major feature on the product roadmap. Our secondary goal was to at least present this work to our XFN leadership and get conversations going on how to further specialize our features, even if some work didn’t make it to the roadmap.

Research

Research

Seated firmly in third place behind their competitors, theScore was aware they needed to improve to compete with the likes of FanDuel and DraftKings.

Research reported that users do not have any major pain points with our current user flows or experience, so it was clear that users mostly viewed our experience as on par with, or the same as, our competitors.

However, the engagement data showed a massive drop off in engagement after two weeks for new users. Considering that our experience is so similar to our competitors, we inferred that these new users were taking advantage of early promotions and churning.

Seated firmly in third place behind their competitors, theScore was aware they needed to improve to compete with the likes of FanDuel and DraftKings.

Research reported that users do not have any major pain points with our current user flows or experience, so it was clear that users mostly viewed our experience as on par with, or the same as, our competitors.

However, the engagement data showed a massive drop off in engagement after two weeks for new users. Considering that our experience is so similar to our competitors, we inferred that these new users were taking advantage of early promotions and churning.

Product Strategy

Product Strategy

With our research showing that most new user engagement was largely promotion-driven, it’s clear that better promotions would be one way to keep users around…but a larger question to ask ourselves on the product team was: how do we get users to play more games, find new ones, and genuinely enjoy their time doing so?

In order to accomplish this, we knew that new, unique features that specialize for casino users’ needs would be the best way to differentiate ourselves. One main area to distinguish ourselves was an overhaul of the homepage. Through an analysis of our users’ implicit needs, we identified  AI, gamification, and personalization as other areas to specialize in.

With our research showing that most new user engagement was largely promotion-driven, it’s clear that better promotions would be one way to keep users around…but a larger question to ask ourselves on the product team was: how do we get users to play more games, find new ones, and genuinely enjoy their time doing so?

In order to accomplish this, we knew that new, unique features that specialize for casino users’ needs would be the best way to differentiate ourselves. One main area to distinguish ourselves was an overhaul of the homepage. Through an analysis of our users’ implicit needs, we identified AI, gamification, and personalization as other areas to specialize in.

Competitive Landscape

Competitive Landscape

As stated earlier, our experience mirrored competitors quite closely so our best way to innovate was to look for inspiration from indirect competitors solving similar problems.

Streaming apps and video game marketplaces, like Netflix and Epic Games, looked to achieve similar goals to ours — how to help users make decisions on what to watch or buy from a large library of content.

Both types of platforms highlighted their newest, or most important, titles first and continued showing more content with a variance in design or category. This gave a fresh feel to the rest of these pages not only in a visual sense but also from a content + scanability standpoint as well.

As stated earlier, our experience mirrored competitors quite closely so our best way to innovate was to look for inspiration from indirect competitors solving similar problems.

Streaming apps and video game marketplaces, like Netflix and Epic Games, looked to achieve similar goals to ours — how to help users make decisions on what to watch or buy from a large library of content.

Both types of platforms highlighted their newest, or most important, titles first and continued showing more content with a variance in design or category. This gave a fresh feel to the rest of these pages not only in a visual sense but also from a content + scanability standpoint as well.

Design

Design

With a focus on gamification and personalization, the casino future state experience contained a large overhaul of the Lobby, or homepage, and the introduction of two new pages — For You and Player Profile.

With a focus on gamification and personalization, the casino future state experience contained a large overhaul of the Lobby, or homepage, and the introduction of two new pages — For You and Player Profile.

Prioritizing user retention and industry differentiating features for the casino user, I redesigned the homepage with a focus on AI, gamification, and personalization.

No modern experience would be complete without AI integration — a major new feature introduced here was a Hollywood Casino AI chatbot. Users are able to conversationally discover games or receive suggestions on which ones to try, as well as directing the AI to complete tasks.

Highlighting the Weekly Challenge very high in the lobby hierarchy gave appropriate real estate to gamification’s importance in the engagement flywheel. New components like the Bento Box and multi-game row give visual variety to the page and allow users to discover a different variety of games from their regular options.

More minute design changes like varying the orientation of game art, alternating background colors for carousel components, and altering iconography added up to keep the page feel fresh.

Prioritizing user retention and industry differentiating features for the casino user, I redesigned the homepage with a focus on AI, gamification, and personalization.

No modern experience would be complete without AI integration — a major new feature introduced here was a Hollywood Casino AI chatbot. Users are able to conversationally discover games or receive suggestions on which ones to try, as well as directing the AI to complete tasks.

Highlighting the Weekly Challenge very high in the lobby hierarchy gave appropriate real estate to gamification’s importance in the engagement flywheel. New components like the Bento Box and multi-game row give visual variety to the page and allow users to discover a different variety of games from their regular options.

More minute design changes like varying the orientation of game art, alternating background colors for carousel components, and altering iconography added up to keep the page feel fresh.

A major part of the personalization and gamification themes, the Player Profile gives a larger look into all the features associated with identity.

The Profile Card houses a new user profile photo, a reservation component, and rankings + achievements. This drives a clear prioritization to an upcoming stay at a Hollywood Casino physical location, tying our brick-and-mortar experience with our digital one, a clear differentiator between us and our competitors. The local ranking and the highlighted achievement drive a sense of belonging and progression.

The Achievements module brings a core aspect of gamification to the platform — building levels for each Achievement brings that sense of progression and success users expect in a lot of modern video games. This is also a place for users to build their own identity on the platform and be able to use as bragging rights to friends and family.

A major part of the personalization and gamification themes, the Player Profile gives a larger look into all the features associated with identity.

The Profile Card houses a new user profile photo, a reservation component, and rankings + achievements. This drives a clear prioritization to an upcoming stay at a Hollywood Casino physical location, tying our brick-and-mortar experience with our digital one, a clear differentiator between us and our competitors. The local ranking and the highlighted achievement drive a sense of belonging and progression.

The Achievements module brings a core aspect of gamification to the platform — building levels for each Achievement brings that sense of progression and success users expect in a lot of modern video games. This is also a place for users to build their own identity on the platform and be able to use as bragging rights to friends and family.

The For You page is central to the idea of personalization in the future state experience. Here, users are able to hop back into games they love, discover new games, or explore new Challenges and Achievements they’ve made progress on.

A central aspect of this page’s improvement, and others as well, is the refinement of the recommendations engine. The current state of the engine is not giving recommendations at a high level of confidence. In order to improve the quality of recommendations, I devised a set of new tags identifiable by both the user and the data science team. Tags included standard categories — game type, category, low min bet — and categories following users’ mental models — subcategories, fruit games, pot of gold games — to capture the full range of groupings.

With a slew of new tags available, the tracking of behavior through more linked data points opens up a whole new world of possibilities on user personalization.

The For You page is central to the idea of personalization in the future state experience. Here, users are able to hop back into games they love, discover new games, or explore new Challenges and Achievements they’ve made progress on.

A central aspect of this page’s improvement, and others as well, is the refinement of the recommendations engine. The current state of the engine is not giving recommendations at a high level of confidence. In order to improve the quality of recommendations, I devised a set of new tags identifiable by both the user and the data science team. Tags included standard categories — game type, category, low min bet — and categories following users’ mental models — subcategories, fruit games, pot of gold games — to capture the full range of groupings.

With a slew of new tags available, the tracking of behavior through more linked data points opens up a whole new world of possibilities on user personalization.

Presentation + Review

Presentation + Review

The future state experience was reviewed biweekly with VP level leadership for design, research, and strategy — each round refined the work and presentation to a sharper degree.

After two months, the designs were presented to the Head of Design and product leadership, who only had minor feedback before wanting to show the work to the CEO.

Coinciding nicely with the quarterly earnings meeting with the Board of Directors, the CEO presented our work as an example of innovative work being done by the design, product, and research teams.

The future state experience was reviewed biweekly with VP level leadership for design, research, and strategy — each round refined the work and presentation to a sharper degree.

After two months, the designs were presented to the Head of Design and product leadership, who only had minor feedback before wanting to show the work to the CEO.

Coinciding nicely with the quarterly earnings meeting with the Board of Directors, the CEO presented our work as an example of innovative work being done by the design, product, and research teams.

Next Steps

Next Steps

After the successful presentations to high-level stakeholders, we were directed to divvy up each feature and prioritize their respective levels of effort. Next steps would also require designs for desktop + Android, accommodating edge cases, and ensuring all components + tokens are adherent to the design system.

After the successful presentations to high-level stakeholders, we were directed to divvy up each feature and prioritize their respective levels of effort. Next steps would also require designs for desktop + Android, accommodating edge cases, and ensuring all components + tokens are adherent to the design system.