CGN Entertainment
A revamped gaming news and reviews website that skyrocketed return users by 23%.
Overview
CGN Entertainment is a video game news & review company owned by Chris Clennan. The focus is on smaller indie games versus larger studio games. They provide content via a website, Youtube, and other popular social media accounts.
Problem
The CGN Entertainment website gets a lot of foot traffic but not a lot of return users. From September 17th, 2022 through October 16th, 2022, the overall foot traffic of the website was 17k users. Only 953 of those users returned to the site. How might we convert first-time users into return users and increase customer retention for the company?
Solution
Redesign the CGN Entertainment website and interface to give users a better experience.
New website: cgnent.com
My Role
UX Designer
Responsibilities
Conducting interviews, creating personas and user journey maps, competitive audit, wireframing, mockups, prototyping, usability studies, iterating on designs
Timeframe
October 2022 - December 2022
User Interviews
After a stakeholder meeting with the owner of CGN Entertainment, I outlined my research strategy and objectives. Understanding the target audience and their challenges was my top priority. First, I found users who regularly visited gaming news websites in various relevant online communities (Reddit, Facebook, etc) and asked:
"What do gamers want from gaming/gaming news websites?"
In just a few days, I received 86 relevant submissions. Based on these, I identified 5 common themes (listed below).
Persona
I created a persona based on online research about gamer demographics combined with feedback received during user interviews. I did this to:
1) Create understanding and empathy with the end users.
2) Gain a perspective similar to the user's.
3) Help me step out of myself and recognize that different people have different needs and expectations outside of my own.
Sketching
I began the design process with low-fidelity sketches and wireframes to accelerate decision-making through visualization. My sketches were based on the user interviews and were tailored to the business goals of CGN Entertainment.
I focused my attention on 2 main pain points from user interviews:
News and articles are the most important features of a gaming website (35% of comments)
Simple navigation and search functions are a necessity (19% of comments)
Wireframes & Prototyping
Using Adobe XD, I translated my first sketches into wireframes. I chose to jump straight to high-fidelity wireframes so that I could show the owner of CGN Entertainment a more polished and complete look. I also used some existing graphics from his current website to give it a familiar look. After a meeting with the owner and some slight iterations, I moved onto prototyping, also using Adobe XD.
Usability Testing
After I finished prototyping, I conducted an unmoderated usability tests with 5 users. I discovered 2 core pain points:
Being able to filter reviews/articles - Users wanted a different way, other than chrono-logical, to filter these items (top rated, genre, gaming platform, etc.).
Mobile responsiveness - I only presented wireframes and prototypes for a desktop but users wanted to be able to see how it worked on a cell phone. I plan to build out mobile wireframes and prototypes in a later iteration.
Final Product
After presenting my mockups, prototypes, and findings to the owner, he was able to use those to code his new website (to the right). What started as a cluttered and disorganized website is now visually appealing with a clear brand, is easy to navigate, and puts news and articles at the forefront of the website.
Before
After
Learnings
In the first month of the relaunch, customer retention has increased by 23%
I believe this website will continue to be successful in bringing back users as the new design focuses on the 5 main themes that I uncovered, the most common one being that articles and reviews are the most important. The new design highlights those 2 items much more effectively and 100% of the usability testers said the new design was less cluttered than before and easier to navigate.
Next Steps
01 - Revisit with the owner and their website in 12 months and reiterate on the website as needed, based on data from the website or any user feedback.
02 - In 1-2 years, help incorporate a social network throughout the website, enabling users to interact through comments, likes, and subscriptions that will encourage return users.
Thank you for reading my case study.
Check out one of my other projects below!