ADVANCED / LEAD UX DESIGNER

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OVERVIEW

In this role, I collaborated with leadership and stakeholders to help identify the desired direction for SMITE 2. During the early months of the SMITE 2 development cycle, my primary focus was on performing competitor research, survey analysis, and developer insights to help identify the UX wins and losses of SMITE 1. SMITE 1 had gone through multiple redesigns of its UI and UX throughout its lifecycle, and was technically never finished. The approach for SMITE 2 was to deliver modern standardization, and develop new concepts that would help set a strong foundation for the team to continue to build upon, instead of replacing. Biggest driver from stakeholders, and the team as a whole, was to keep some a strong sense of familiarity to its most recent iteration, while giving it a much needed face-lift, and redesigning outdated concepts that would feel far more welcoming for players to engage with. The challenge, however, was defining these strong, positive, impactful changes with a very tight deadline. It meant focusing on our efforts as team, and doing our best to be collaborative, and achieving these goals together.

- For the first 5 months, I was the sole UI/UX Designer focusing on competitor research, surveys, case studies and identifying stakeholder business goals
- Set and presented SMITE 2’s UI/UX Direction and Pillars for the future of our product
- Met with Dr. Madison Klarkowski to discuss some of the traps of highly-competitive games, and how we could identify opportunities to improve our design principles towards players of different skill levels. Multiplayer games has a tendency of intimidating players of various skill levels which leads to performance anxiety, and we needed to address this concern.
- Collaborated to create several UI/UX based surveys to gather critical data to assist the development team
- Created the UI/UX Architectural flows for several areas in the game.
- Collaborated on numerous designs across the title to improve overall usability for both In-Game and Front End experiences
- Re-imagined and redesigned new experiences for many areas of SMITE 1
- Collaborated with players and developers, across different teams, to reimagine the First-Time User Experience
- Worked directly with countless community members during playtests, and group discussions
- Was the primary driver in the creation the Visual and Thematic Direction for the UI Art
- Collaborated in the creation of the UI Style Guide, and Global Visual Components
- As the team grew, I became the primary UX Designer on the team
- Mentored and coached newer UX Designers to help elevate their skillset.
- Worked closely with leadership and stakeholders to ensure we were focused on delivering the best experiences possible
- Collaborated, and directed third-party vendors to create high-fidelity motion graphics
- Created motion mocks to provide a visual proof of concepts on how certain interactions could function.
- Collaborated with our 3D environment team to ideate concepts for different front end experiences.
- Created concepts for new in-game presentations and animation for intro and outro experiences.