The Arcade: People Driven Design
Laurin McNulty – ART354 – Spring 2021
At the very beginning of this design project, students were each assigned a detailed one-of-a-kind persona generated by the AoE4D Persona Generator. Phase one of the People Driven Design project required students to create a physical deliverable for their persona based on their needs, interests, and unique characteristics. My persona was a 19-year-old Asian American single mother named Mila, living in Madison, Wisconsin. She is interested in vintage video games and spending quality time with her family. When creating a physical design deliverable for my persona, I decided to create a retro gaming inspired board game fittingly titled ‘The Arcade’ that my persona could play with her loved ones.
The second phase of this assignment led students to expand on the brand of their original deliverable, requiring a functioning app, website, an additional onmichannel design, and a set of web and billboard advertisements that were required by the client. In this article, I will showcase my progress and discuss my final deliverables.
The Arcade – Mobile App
The Arcade app allows users to access the original 8-bit games that The Arcade board game is inspired by on the go. I wanted the app to be a game app that’s purposes are to entertain and to act as an advertisement for the board game and website. When creating the original board game, I wanted to ensure that the rules and mechanics were simple enough to be enjoyed by people of all ages. Considering my persona is a single mother to a young child, and prioritizes spending time with her family, I wanted to create something for her that she could enjoy with anyone. Keeping this stylistic choice in mind, I wanted to make an Arcade app that remained true to The Arcade’s simple and enjoyable game play.
The final functional app is straight forward, almost anyone could play it. The nostalgic and simple images can appeal to both people who are familiar with these classic games, and those who are not. Here I have included the link to the final version of The Arcade app.
https://xd.adobe.com/view/ea58b959-fce3-42fc-96e9-0cf5eb0cdf77-bf0b/
The Arcade – Website
The Arcade website is much more informative and interactive than the app, this was a stylistic choice. As stated in the previous section, the app’s main purposes are for entertainment and promoting The Arcade website and board game. The website includes a title page, multiple shop pages, multiple online game play pages (similar to a desktop version of what the app offers), an about page, and more. The website allows visitors to purchase the board game, limited edition items, and collectable posters as well. When someone buys their own set of The Arcade board game, it comes with one of six collectable posters. This poster is random, so a potential buyer has no way to know which of the collectable posters may be inside their Arcade game box. The shop page on The Arcade website allows visitors to purchase the remaining posters in the set of six collectable posters. The featured limited edition Arcade inspired product offered on the website changes every month as well. Each of these features give Arcade players an incentive to check out the website and potentially even make a repeat purchase from The Arcade store in the future.
When I first began creating my website, I had a difficult time making it feel real, it felt much too similar to my app and it did not expand The Arcade brand in an interesting way. Once I conducted more research, received feedback in class, and gathered more information, I began adding essential elements that really started bringing the entire webpage together. After lots of thought, I reached a final functioning website that I think effective expands the Arcade board game in a way that I am happy with. Here I have included the link to the final version of The Arcade website.
https://xd.adobe.com/view/da154960-93de-4126-a2a2-9b80e4108ffc-8f46/
The Arcade – Omnichannel Design
For my Omnichannel design piece, I decided to design a box to accompany The Arcade board game. I also included the image of the board game box in the set of web advertisements as well which I felt was an effective advertising method. Adding the box to the board game set made things feel much more polished and complete. Below I have included images of the box, the original board game, and the flat graphic that is shown on the front on the box.
The Arcade – Advertisements
