Organise the product team for pushing forward retention metrics of Stoloto products and decrease their development time. Bring a new product vision that supports consistency through all platforms.
For two years, I was in charge of Stoloto Digital Products. Together with four designers, two developers, and a project manager, we took care of the Stoloto desktop site, the mobile application, and the mobile site. Each of the UX designers was responsible for building the user experience for a separate product part. Additionally, our UI designer supported us with graphic assets and animation. I mostly focused on product strategy, research, global product structure, face pages, navigation, and visual consistency.
Our process was utterly data-driven. After certain data analysis, we have aligned with stakeholders on how we can improve numbers. Since all products were alive with 1 million audiences, all ideas were user-tested, then A/B tested before the implementation. We have organized the research for distinguishing the groups of users, where we have interviewed about 45 people about their gambling habits.
The goal was to organise the digital space for three groups of people: newbies, seasonal players, and professional players to satisfy their needs.
— According to our data, new users often left after trying 1-2 lotteries. During the interviews, they reasoned low level of trust and the complexity of lottery interfaces;
— Seasonal users were playing 2-3 same lotteries per month, and during the interviews, they indicated a low level of awareness about our other products;
— Professional users (gamblers) spent a lot of time making bets and checking draws. Still, they complained about a lack of statistics and the possibility of saving and reusing the same combinations.
After the we processed all research results it was decided:
— We need to build 3 versions of the product to support different audience needs;
— The system should distinguish players by their type and change the interface accordinly;
— There should be a possibility of the manual change.
After several user testing session, we have achieved positive feedback:
— The newbie version started with an attractive landing page, explaining why they can trust us and how all systems work. The interface for this group included training and tips;
— The interface for seasonal users was mostly based on engagement through gamification, like achievements, games of the day, and free bets in lotteries they have never tried before;
— For professional gamblers, we have added various statistics based on previous results like the games and dates with maximum winnings or their most lucky numbers, e.t.c.
The goal was to transfer the full desktop experience to mobile platforms (iOS and Android), make it attractive for the younger audience, and keep it consistent for the users who are switching between desktop and mobile platforms.
Here we have:
— Discovered the differences between desktop and mobile use cases;
— Defined the list of the features;
— Reorganised the navigation and layouts for mobile users;
— Tested iOS and Android prototypes separately;
— Designed micro-interactions and animation;
— Supported implementation.
The goal was to let the Stoloto mobile website players make bets and follow draws at any time, regardless of the quality of their internet connection.
According to collected data, the main problem of the mobile site users was loading time. The major audience of the Stoloto lives in small cities and villages where mobile internet connection is poor and mobile internet could be expensive itself. This story led us to several discussions on how we could help all these users keep using Stoloto during work commute, at summer holidays e.t.c.
For this part, we have:
— Minimised amount of features for the mobile web site;
— Excluded special effects and animation;
— Сonverted all graphics from raster formats to vector;
— Optimised frontend solutions;
— Tested each version loading speed until we achieved stable results.
— All cross-platform products successfully went through redesign;
— User experience of the payment process was simplified;
— 6 new lotteries joined the platform;
— New profile structure was implemented;
— The custom UI system was created and documented.
During those two years when I was responsible for the products and the team, we have achieved significant improvements in processes and, therefore, in metrics. I managed to bring the user-centered approach to understanding data, making users an essential part of our team, which ultimately led to a successful redesign of all products. Uniting and gathering around user needs has helped us unify all products through a holistic system of styles, elements, and user experience patterns. Today Stoloto's team continues to support the concepts and methods I have implemented successfully.