Bringing gamers closer to the content and franchises they love.
Interaction Design / Product Design / Content
Player.One provides in-depth, passionate coverage of the world of gaming and gamer culture. They offer news, insights, information & opinions about the games plus, (gadgets, movies, comics, apps, shows & more) that fans love. Player.One
iDigitalTimes, the original IBT gaming brand, was founded in mid-2012 as a general-interest tech news site with a focus on aggregated and curated news. The site gradually evolved to include more coverage of digital culture, gaming, and entertainment. After re-envisioning the strategy, would now focus more directly on gaming and youth-focused digital culture.
Challenge
The primary mission was to create a destination that captured the imagination of fans while surrounding them in everything related to the franchises they love via an integrated database of deep content, keep audiences engaged, learning and coming back for more.
We were tasked with defining the core audiences, developing a new brand system and creating a new digital experience that would surround players in their favorite content & franchises.
Approach
Through several detailed project phases the our team was able to define our audience, create business/creative objectives and define an agile workflow
that would get us to a new presence within 4 months. Each phase is designed to expand, contract, and repeat based on learnings during the product lifecycle.
Continuous user testing and validation was exercised during every phase of the project. From business, branding and advertising, right through user experience and content development.
Results
High Score!
Since its launch, Player.One has enjoyed rapid growth in traffic and overall engagement.
In one year we measured a 12% increase in millennial viewers, a 10% increase in female readership and overall monthly visitors increased by 28% bring Player.One to over 8 Million unique visitors per month.
In addition, we were successful in developing new branded content advertising models and brought on six new partners including, Alienware, Microsoft and Xbox.
Branding
We wanted to craft a brand that was contemporary and fresh but gave a subtle wink to vintage gaming systems through color and shape. Knowing strategically the brand would live across multiple platforms, consoles and social media, it was extremely important that the identity work well at reduced sizes and incorporate a memorable iconic image that could stand on its own.
Interaction design
Working in a truly agile process while driving the branding, user experience design, content development and new advertising models we were able to create efficiencies, validate concepts and develop platform technology innovations. Our core focus was on seamless content delivery and content relevance. The faster we could get our users to relevant content the more we could drive in category engagement.
Prototyping
Low and high fidelity prototypes were created and tested at various stages of the project. We used low-fi prototypes to test more detailed navigational elements, especially on mobile, and higher fidelity prototypes to test with user audiences. After testing we moved into designing the visual interface and all associated design elements.
Apple News App
We worked closely with the Apple News App development team to ensure we were designing the best experince possible and were one of the first publications to launch on the updated platform.
High Score!
8 month project lifecycle to launch • New Player.One brand / brand system • Re-platform & launch of Player.One • Created a rich UX experience tailored for content consumption • Created new advertising strategy & modules • Created a product-centered taxonomy / database • Created Apple News & Google AMP experiences • Increase social engagement • Created a global design system
