The Project:
I worked with Lauren Ring for 10 weeks to create a website to enhance Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition to make the game more accessible for beginner players. We researched, designed, and created a website in the span of these 10 weeks that you can find here.
Video Trailer for Dragon on Training Wheels.
Research:
On recognizing that the activity we wanted to enhance was Dungeons and Dragons, we set out to need find. We observed two different groups of Dungeons and Dragons and interviewed the participants afterwards. We interviewed Dungeon Masters and players alike.
Through the observation and interview process, we recognized that there was a huge need to simplify the process of consulting the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. Players struggled to find the information they needed in the textbooks, or would outsource many different convoluted solutions.
An excerpt from our original Needfinding Document.
Our design space we developed based on our insight. We wanted to be careful not to provide a service that already existed.
Design Process:
We created storyboards, paper prototypes, and digital prototypes as we honed in what the website would begin to look like and the functions it would serve prior to coding the website.
We decided we wanted to take on a simple, storybook aesthetic that would walk a new player completely through the process of making a new character and preparing for their first game.
We believed this would also serve more experienced players, because the information used to form the characters are always deeply relevant to the functions of the game.
We created storyboards, paper prototypes, and digital prototypes as we honed in what the website would begin to look like and the functions it would serve prior to coding the website.
We decided we wanted to take on a simple, storybook aesthetic that would walk a new player completely through the process of making a new character and preparing for their first game.
We believed this would also serve more experienced players, because the information used to form the characters are always deeply relevant to the functions of the game.
Displayed on the right are different key features of the website. I was the primary artist, and created all of the art for the website.
The homepage received several renovations to ensure people recognized where different key aspects to the website lie.
The banner system was also made much more streamlined and organized.
Finally, we have the Attributes page, which represents several of the different functionalities for the website. We often had nodes where users could toggle through different settings for their character and save it to their character sheet. We simplified this process much more to be easier on the eyes.
User Testing:
In the first round of user testing, we had users give a qualitative evaluation of the website.
A list of proposed changes from our initial qualitative user testing.
In the second round, we created two versions of the homepage and conducted both another qualitative in-person evaluation and an online round of A/B testing with 195 user sessions.
We then made a finalized version of the homepage utilizing all the feedback. Ultimately, the testing ruled that users preferred a more simple look. However, many users still requested for more context information to be provided for the buttons. Our final website is available in its entirety at https://lmring.github.io/DOTW/index.html.
