SOCIAL ACTIVITIES PORTAL

In 2008 I was employed by startup company Skill Gaming to work on a social network concept called Funcurrent. My role as designer included UX and UI design within a team of business analysts, information architects and developers.

Funcurrent was originally intended to be a gateway to gaming, whether online, offline, board games, battle re-enactments or paper based games like Sudoku.

The initial idea evolved since the early stages and the vision was that Funcurrent would be a one stop site where you can organise and view any event you might be interested in with calendar facilities, location settings etc. and to make your time your own to enjoy the things you love with REAL people you enjoy being with.

What set Funcurrent apart from other social networking sites is the fact that it aimed to be exclusion based rather inclusion based. It respected privacy, was secure and aimed at the 30+ year olds.

Rather than adding as many friends as possible you could add only the ones you want. If you preferred people didn’t know you belonged to the network, you could easily set your security preferences. At this point in time sites like Facebook and MySpace did not have advanced security settings. This allowed control over the following situation: a work colleague stumbles onto your profile and adds you as a friend, in turn you feel socially obliged to accept the invitation although you would not have added them to your contact list if you had a choice.

An online concept game called Mettle were being developed in parallel with Funcurrent utilising a bespoke micro payment plugin engine which would be used to generate revenue by purchasing in game items. The micro payment system would also be licences to other vendors for a fee.

BRANDS

Funcurrent was also developed to coincide with the release of Skill Gaming’s online first person shooter game “Mettle” which was in development. Mettle would showcase Funcurrent’s capabilities and would introduce a bespoke micro-transaction payment engine  which was also in development by the company. My role in Mettle was to create assist in creating the brand and awareness of the Mettle / Funcurrent partnership.

Identifying the potential target groups; their needs, how to communicate the service to them and what incentives provided would convince them to join the portal.

Key Points

Awareness

• Being aware of potential target audience
• How to make them aware of the portal / service / product

Understanding

• Understanding the needs of potential target audience
• Making people understand what the portal is about, how it could be used to enhance / organise their gaming experience as well as the social networking capabilities. Pointing out the benefits of joining the portal.

Register (Sign up)

• Convincing them in subtle ways to Register.

Engage

• Engaging with them to make their experience better by offering tours, giving them the opportunity to explore the possibilities and learn how to use the tools to their full potential.
• Making them use the functionality on offer (Provide them with ways to explore and offering them tutorials to fully utilise the site)

Advocate – Getting them to spread the word.

Three target groups were identified covering the scope of potential users; they will be referred to as Brian, Steph and Death-Slayer. These potential users have different needs, interests and lives.

The most cost effective technology on which to build funcurrent had been determined by the developers as the Open Source Portal platform “Liferay”. The portal framework was also chosen because of the midget layout of the platform. Funcurrent was to be a completely personalised experience where the user would create their own unique space where they would be in full control of the content they would have access to apart from a few default settings.

Liferay is a Java based platform and the earlier versions on which funcurrent had been developed left design challenges which had to be addressed. In order to create desired features and effects on the framework the then emerging javascript library JQuery was integrated. The CSS also had to be heavily customised to allow for branding as well as layout customisation.

The chosen technology had to be taken into consideration every step of the way in the UX design process in order to achieve the deliverables set out by the main shareholders and stakeholders.

Smartphones were still in it’s infancy and was not a player in the UX decision making, however, making provision for the advent and integration of the rise in smartphone had been discussed.

The Challenge

Different people from different walks of life, with different schedules are all potential subscribers, their needs and free time vary and a way needs to be developed to attract the key audiences without pressurising them into registering or giving too many details at once by bombarding them with forms. As we track the user’s movement, and directing them in playful ways, building up the user profile in a subtle way without distracting them becomes possible.