This week’s redesign will be a quick usability test that hopefully will show the benefits of doing usability tests to increase the user experience in your products.
Purpose
Find out areas for improvement when it comes to finding a table to play poker at.
Settings

3 gaming portals: bwin.com, betsson.com and unibet.com (will use their instant poker version)
5 users: All Swedish players.
1 user scenario: “Find and sit down to play at a €1/€2 Texas Hold’em table of your choice”

Result
Redesign of one finding per portal
Please come back early next week to see the results from the …

Image 1. Registration dialogue using social media
Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect are two ways in which you today can add social content to your gaming portal and you can also use it to publish information on social networks.
I believe that we will see this on gaming portals within a year or so.
It will be especially good when players can user their Facebook (or other social network accounts) to register and login to your gaming portal. They only have to remember one login and the player can allow you to …

Image 1. bwin’s bet search function.
I really like bwin’s new bet search function it works really well.
When will we see gaming operators with a “Bet suggest function“?
A Bet suggest function will based on previous player activities suggest and promote bets that are of interest to the player.
An example: I like the Swedish soccer team Helsingborgs IF, and a Bet suggest function could suggest bets with Helsingborgs IF specially on match days.
Another example would be bets based on where I live, for instance if Sweden is playing soccer against Denmark then …

Good news for me! It looks like I will be attending EIG 2009 in Copenhagen 15-17 of September. Are you going to? And want to discuss user experience and igaming then let me know!
Send me an e-mail, staffan.schroder @ inuse.se :)
/Staffan

Image 1. Unibet’s instant poker login.
Why do I have to log in again when I start the instant poker client by Microgaming on Unibet?
It just takes longer for a player to start playing so why isn’t it a single sign on solution built for the instant poker? Unibet’s bingo solution starts right away without me having to log in again.
And what is even more confusing, there is a checkbox in the instant poker log in dialogue “Remember Login Details” and I’ve checked it, but I still need to type in …

Image 1. Svenska Spel’s retrieve password page.
I haven’t played on svenskaspel.se for a year so I can’t remember my password. Therefor I went to the site to get a new password. This was easier said than done.
On the “Retrieve new password” page you have to fill out your username and birth date and then select the delivery format. I selected “in the mail” since I haven’t the same mobile number as I did when I signed up at Svenska Spel. But when I clicked on the “Mail” radio button the …

Unibet’s instant poker page.
I’ve played poker at Unibet for a while and I get frustrated every time I start the instant poker client.
Unibet has made a page where there are 3 steps you have to do before you can play.

Register an account at Unibet
Create a poker alias
Start instant poker client

I did all 3 steps the first time and every time after that I only need to start the poker client. But what is a bit confusing is that Unibet still shows the same page with the 3 steps everytime I …

Image 1. Login dialogue – PokerHeaven’s instant poker client.
I believe PokerHeaven and gaming operators using Boss Media’s instant poker are losing players because of a bad user interface.
I watched poker on the Poker Channel yesterday and remembered that I have an account at PokerHeaven so I went to their website. There I noticed that they had an instant version of their poker client which was great since I am using a mac. I started the client and clicked on the login button and came to the login dialogue in image 1.
Since …

Sky Poker’s portal poker lobby.
Sky Poker makes the poker portal more alive with the integrated lobby and by not just having a button saying “Instant Play” which opens up the portal in a new window as many other poker operators do.
I really like Sky Poker’s poker lobby which is integrated in the portal. This is the first implementation of this I’ve seen and it works really well.
This as a first step towards the next generation of gaming portals which I talk about in two previous blog posts:

Personalization when? – Gaming …

This week’s redesign is looking at one of the first things a potential player needs to do before they can become a player on your gaming portal, this is the registration process.
A potential player just want to get started as fast as possible and therefor the registration process needs to be fast, easy and help the player in case he gets confused during the process.
Many gaming portals doesn’t put that much effort in making a great registration form and this week I’ve looked at Betfair’s sign up form and come up …

PartyPoker can make it a lot easier for players using data on which operating system the players use.

Image 1. PartyPoker’s start page.
I am using a Mac and went to partypoker.com to play some poker, on the start page there is a huge button saying ”Download Now”. I clicked on the button expecting to download the poker client.

PartyPoker’s Instant Play page.
But it didn’t start to download the poker client, insted I was transferred to a page for PartyPoker’s Instant Play (a poker client you run in your browser). That would have …

Today I heard about a new service called Send My Chips which helps player move funds between different poker sites. Send My Chips takes a fee for the service.  This is a good feature if you play at many poker sites since you can move money between them. I think the transfer between the poker sites needs to be almost instant to be successful.
I got really curious about the service but when I went to their website and tried to make a transfer between two of the poker sites that …

In my first Redesign in 20 minutes I redesigned OnGame’s poker lobby and today I’m doing a quick redesign of PokerStars poker lobby. PokerStars have a number of different themes you as a player can choose from. I’ve looked at the default theme, PokerStars Black Theme.
I’m using the same business goals and player goals as in my OnGame poker lobby redesign,
For a poker lobby I believe the business goals may be something like this:

Increase the number of money players in the network.
Convert players into real money players.
Decrease the time it …