An accessible, sleek slot machine UI

Let me brag first

This work earned me my first ever design award for "Experience of the Year."

(Yes the award is kind of internal, but there was actually some tough competition across the entire organization).

What did I do?

I designed a completely new slot machine interface for an international cruise line. I ran the design strategy, oversaw and planned the research, created a comprehensive design system, created design documentation, and oversaw QA for the finished product. And I did this as the only designer on the project, working with one project manager and one engineer. (Initially I led a team of 2 other designers, but they unfortunately left the company).

Research strategy

This client was incredibly flexible and open to our process, so I had free rein when developing the research strategy. Besides the standard mood boarding, competitive analysis, user flows, personas, etc. that I create or delegate for every project, we had an incredible opportunity to do some real, on-the-ground research.

So the team set sail on two week-long cruises, and I prepared my teammates to make the most of that time by implementing a series of different guerrilla research methods as well as conduct some more formal research and design thinking activities.

Putting my anthropological cap on, I chose a mixture of:

Disguised naturalistic observation: observing players in street clothes without them knowing
Undisguised naturalistic observation: observing players, knowing that we were observing them
Participant observation: observing ourselves play at the machines
Role playing: interacting with staff and other players without them knowing who we were, pretending to be inebriated while asking for support, actually getting inebriated and playing at the machines, etc.
Structured observation: taking specific players through flows with the machine and interviewing them

Our goal as a team was to understand the entire ecosystem in and around the slot machine playing experience (which ultimately led to more projects as we observed other opportunity areas).

My goal as the research strategist was to ensure the team had a robust, unbiased understanding of that ecosystem. I also wanted to account for the full context around the slot play experience, which included lighting, sound, and distractions in the space, average age of players, vision impairments of players, and mental and physical state of players. Additionally, I wanted to make sure that all the stakeholders' experiences and opinions were accounted for, so we not only interviewed and ran workshops with the higher-ups who paid for the project, but we also interviewed staff on the floor, technicians, and engineers behind the scenes.

Selected screenshots of the final designs

Considerations

It was a very small screen (640x240px)

The demographics of cruises skew older (over 60 years old)

Players using this interface were often inebriated

The screen hardware did not support a 4k resolution

The proprietary software made by Konami only supported XML, which meant no HTML, no CSS, no custom typeface (or styles), no Javascript, etc.

Interaction (Tap states) had to be the same as disabled states

The client did not have any established design system
There needed to be places where branding (colors or logos) could be customized based on cruise line, since this company owned over 10 different cruise lines all using the same interface

Decisions

The interface needed high contrast to make it easy to see in a dark, noisy, distracting casino environment
Type sizes needed to be as large as possible
Tap areas needed to be as large as possible
The player flows to pay needed to be as simple as possible to promote higher spending rates and minimal friction
Players needed easy access to all kinds of interactions without being overloaded with choices or obscuring their choices

Selections from the documentation