I have started with defining the problem which was the increasing number of people spending their time indoors engaging with screens rather than exploring the great outdoors. The interest in playing games has drastically increased since the pandemic and this led to people choosing to stay indoors rather than spending their times outside. My solution is to encourage physical activity with engaging gameplay, reduce sedentary behavior, promote mental and physical well-being, and reconnect people with their surroundings. ClueSolvers will not only provide entertainment but also encourage a healthier and more active lifestyle, foster a sense of community, and inspire a spirit of adventure and curiosity. I have found out Pokemon Go as the main competitor since it also offers physical well being and reconnection with the environment. What I realized in Pokemon Go was users had to stare at the screen all the time to play the time which led to accidents and injuries. Therefore, I had to create a game in which users can take a minute to look around.

I have crafted user journey for the persona to enhance functionality which later helped me with creating the information architecture. This way, I would have enough information and know my audience better before moving on with surveys and interviews. For online surveys I used optimal workshop to prepare the questions. The main purpose of this research is to help identify some useful features for the game, identify pain points to improve user experience and find what motivates users to go outside and learn more about user habits and behaviours. After the research I found out that people usually spend 15-30 mins a day for playing games, socializing and exercising is the main motives for people to go outside along with exploring new places and lack of time and motivation is what keeps people from going out.

After writing down the key findings of the research I started building up the initial sketches and wireframes. The principles I mainly focused on were ease of use and minimalistic design. Therefore, I decided to have a simple button at the bottom of the screen which will provide both ease of use and a minimalistic design. The button serves as a portal that can take the user anywhere that they need to go in the game. After preparing the main screens I started thinking about the design system and the color palette. I have color coded the themes for the stories which will make each theme easy to find.

The purpose of this usability testing was to find out more about the initial impressions, general layout and the categorization. Users were asked to complete a couple of tasks like adding a new friend or find a specific screen in the game. As a result I have found out that the general layout is working pretty well based on the card sorting activity. Click tracking activity helped me learn more about user behaviors and how they interact with the app when they are given a specific task.