My AimLab results screen redesign.
AimLabs, formerly known as Statespace Labs, is an esports gaming startup. Their flagship product is a desktop application called AimLabs, which serves as an aim trainer. AimLabs is designed to help users of popular first-person shooter games like Fortnite, Valorant, and Call of Duty improve their aiming skills and overall performance in these titles.
I joined AimLabs' design team as a Senior Product Designer, leading the end-to-end design process for many of the company's features and updates. The team consisted of two other Senior Designers, two mid-level Product Designers, two Junior Designers, and one intern who reported directly to me. From ideation and conceptualization to final delivery, I helped ensure a cohesive and effective user experience across AimLabs' offerings.
As part of a company-wide effort to enhance the AimLabs experience for users, my initial task was to redesign the results screen. This project subsequently paved the way for a second initiative where I created a feature that helped users identify their ideal mouse sensitivity settings. Leveraging this new feature, I strategically promoted an AimLabs product, which helped drive sales.
The mouse sensitivity feature contributed to $24 million in sales for AimLabs. Notably, the sensitivity finder tool boosted SEO; nearly 50% of AimLabs' paying users originate from Google searches where Sens Finder caught the user's eye.
My primary goal was to enhance the results screen, which had remained unchanged since the app's initial development years prior. I aimed to bring the results screen in line with the app's evolved design standards and provide a more cohesive and engaging experience for users.
While I prefer data-driven design approaches, the tight sprint timeline precluded extensive user research for the results screen redesign. As an alternative, I visited the Steam store, where AimLabs had nearly 50,000 user reviews, to gather the voice of the customer. However, visiting Steam was not as useful as I'd hoped; Steam does not allow direct download of reviews from their website or app. Instead, it must be done via their API.
In lieu of user feedback, I conducted a heuristic review of the existing results screen. The primary issue identified was excessive clutter, with too many elements competing for attention. Moreover, the graph in the center of the screen lacked clarity - my own team members were unsure of its meaning. This highlighted the need for a more intuitive and focused design.
Bad UX
Initial AimLab results screen
I did some research into design conventions for video game results screens. I visited interfaceingame.com and gameuidatabase.com to review the results screens of successful games including Valorant and Call of Duty. I also considered the results screens of games I'd played, including Hitman, which took a very modern, minimalist design approach.
When creating the wireframes, I centered the design around the user's primary goal of improving their aim and getting feedback on their performance. I addressed the clutter, removing unnecessary design elements and reorganizing the content to help users digest the screens content quickly.
Users striving to enhance their skills should promptly receive feedback on their performance and recommendations for their next aim-training task.
I created final mockups for the redesigned results screen. The mockups aimed to present performance data clearly and provide actionable recommendations on the next training task. This approach ensured users could quickly understand their progress while seamlessly transitioning to their next aim-training task.
As previously mentioned, there were over 50,000 reviews for AimLabs in the Steam store, however those reviews could not simply be downloaded as a file. Instead, the only way to get those reviews is for a developer to write an algorithm that could make API calls to the Steam API and pull the Steam reviews in batches of 100.
So that's what I did.
With extra time in the sprint, I wrote some Node JS code that pulled all of AimLabs' Steam reviews and uploaded them to a Google Sheet, which I shared with the entire AimLabs organization during one of our town hall meetings.
A few AimLabs Steam Reviews
With all reviews in a spreadsheet, we were able to quickly identify trends. Two of those trends were:
· Users mentioning bugs within AimLabs, and
· User mentioning their mouse sensitivity.
Being able to see users' feedback in such a convenient and organized way led to AimLabs focusing on two big initiatives: fixing bugs in the AimLabs UI and a new feature to help users identify their ideal mouse sensitivity.
This feature that helped users find their ideal mouse sensitivity was known as Sens Finder.
Sens Finder was a new AimLabs feature that helped users find their ideal mouse sensitivity through different aiming exercises. Additionally, through a partnership with ASUS we planned to sell an AimLabs-branded mouse that let users fine-tune their settings in ways that are not possible with a standard mouse.
The Sensitivity Finder had two main purposes - first, to recommend sensitivity levels for people using normal mice. Second, to help users of the AimLabs-ASUS mouse take full advantage of its advanced tuning capabilities to dial in their perfect sensitivity.
By walking through the exercises, you could get a personalized sensitivity suggestion tailored to your skills.
My aim (pun intended) was to design the screens that guided users through Sens Finder.
I as asked to create the screens that users would view between aiming exercises. However, I knew more would be required to ensure the best user experience.
In addition to those screens, I decided to include a tutorial for new users who stumble upon Sens Finder.
Also, to help promote the AimLabs mouse, I planned to include a description of the mouse along with a CTA of where to buy the mouse inside of Sens Finder.
With my plans for the product set, I created wireframes which I reviewed with my team followed by mockups. During our reviews, I was very pleased to hear that the team was on board with my ideas to include a tutorial along with promotion for the AimLabs mouse.
This was a massively successful initiative. As of March 2024, Sens Finder has helped generate over $24M in sales with over 200K AimLabs mice sold, which meant a cut of $600K for AimLabs. Sens Finder has also improved AimLabs' SEO ranking and has helped attract paying customers for it's paid service, AimLabs+ as nearly 50% of AimLabs+ users come from a Google search on Sensitivity Finder.