Feature Design | May - June 2021
Role
Product Designer
Type
Personal Project
Team
Individual
Discord is a community-based communication app for gamers that has recently rebranded in hopes of creating a more inclusive experience. However, many users still feel a lack of belonging because they can't suitably express themselves within all their online communities. If this problem isn't solved, Discord's overall user retention and product advocacy would drastically fall.
Therefore, I set out to design Server-Specific Avatars, a feature that enables users to distinguish themselves from other communities by displaying unique avatars for each of the servers they’re in.
I worked on the entire end-to-end design process of the feature from research to the interactive prototype.
Note: This is a personal project and I am not affiliated with Discord. This case study was created as a fun learning experience for me to explore and improve the digital products I enjoy using.
Discord servers have continuously clashed with each other because users couldn't portray suitable images for all their niche communities. These users brought their frustrations to light and created a domino effect upon others.
"I work for a company and don't want my private groups to see my professional job avatar. I especially don't want them to think that I'm promoting my company onto them." — Jason
As great as Discord is for creating an all-encompassing communication platform, there isn't a viable solution that tackle these user pain points.
Jason joins his work's new design server and changes his server avatar to a picture of him sipping coffee ☕. Being able to change his avatar before joining the server allows him to avoid his pain points from the get-go.
Jason joins a gaming server through a URL link and changes his server avatar to a green slime from the server welcome screen. He feels comfortable interacting with others since his avatar is bound to only the gaming server.
The main proposition for Discord — Jason can set a different server-specific avatar for each of the servers he's in. Being able to separate his work related servers from personal servers allows him to feel comfortable using Discord. Seems like he's craving sushi 😋
Jason can choose to have his account avatar as a server avatar if he feels safe and comfortable using it in certain trusted servers.
Jason can choose to remove his server-specific avatar for a default Discord icon. This gives him a sense of security when he doesn't want others to see his previous avatar.
Jason can select and change his account avatar from his photos, which doesn't interfere with any of the avatars in all his servers. Users who direct message him will see his account avatar, so he wisely chooses an image.
I was desperately curious if other users have experienced similar problems, so I ran a round of interviews with 7 users to dive deeper into what frustrates them and how they're currently dealing with it.
"I have an alternative Discord account for work, but it's a hassle to constantly log in and out. It's frustrating when I accidently send messages on the wrong account."
"I don't feel comfortable revealing myself in certain servers because I’ve encountered harassment in a lot of servers that I’ve joined."
Based on the pain points discovered from the user responses, I was able to form three problem spaces that reinforced the main problem and became my opportunity for the solution.
While keeping the three problem spaces in mind, I looked into other online community platforms used among Discord users. I found that all of them lack essential personalization features and neglect the concept of online identity, which makes users reluctant to use the products.
I asked myself several "How Might We" questions based on the three problem spaces to create the foundation of the design and frame the brainstorming ideas.
After collaborating with 7 other participants in a brainstorming session, I ultimately narrowed it down to two viable solutions.
After listing out these validation points, I decided that Server-Specific Avatars was the ideal solution because it strongly aligned with the needs of Discord users and has an overall greater business impact.
Now that the solution is set in stone, I laid out the flow for the main feature to get an idea of how I would build out the wireframes while keeping the requirements in mind.
This flow was modeled after the existing Server-Specific Nickname flow, so I was confident that I could satisfy the requirements.
Now that the solution is set in stone, I laid out the wireflow of the main feature to get an idea of how I would build the prototype for the initial usability testing while keeping the design principles in mind.
I conducted remote, moderated usability testing sessions with 10 participants to observe the feature's intuitiveness and measure task completion and user satisfaction KPIs.
"I can't tell if the 'Remove Avatar' text is tappable. It doesn't look like a button I can tap."
“What if I wanted to do things other than change my avatar on the server welcome screen?”
My first rough draft was . . . rough, but I gained insightful feedback and was determined to come back with a stronger iteration.
Even though I had a lot of feedback, I really struggled with how to improve the feature. But, I reminded myself to focus on the three design principles and to design for Jason. I then followed up with the final iterations for the high-fidelity prototype.
With a second round of moderated usability testing, I measured the task completion rate and user satisfaction KPIs to evaluate the three design principles: Simple, Accessible, and Efficient.
Based on these findings, it's safe to say that the feature successfully met all the design principles.
If this were an actual project, further quantitative data would be collected to measure business performance during post-launch. These metrics would measure the business outcomes for Discord.
I designed this feature with a focus on community and personal identity. In my opinion, I found it easier to design a feature that's more concrete, such as improving navigation efficiency or accessibility.
Although I would love for Discord to implement this feature, I can understand how difficult it is to execute. Discord would need to store a large number of avatars per server for each user. A large cloud-based storage system may be needed to accomplish this feat. I'm hope Discord can pull it off soon!
Update 1: A few months after writing this case study, Discord officially implemented Server-Specific Avatars and is currently in beta testing.
Update 2: Officially released as of September 28, 2021.
While doing additional research, I stumbled upon a thread on Discord's Feedback Center that caught my attention.
I read through the comments to learn how I could cater to the target audience.