Improving the browser gaming experience for 25M monthly users
Coolmath Games is a beloved gaming site enjoyed by millions of players, and I became the first in-house designer to work on the product. Through continuous research and planning, we were able to redesign and introduce features across the site that increased usability, user engagement, conversions, and SEO optimization.
Game Pages
Overview
Game pages are core to the site's experience and commonly the first stop in users' journeys, so we sought to create a more engaging experience with better game discoverability. Previously, the game pages were recommending games through static lists, with small, unclear thumbnail images, and missing game titles. We fixed this in the "You'll Also Like" section and also introduced new dynamic recommendations with 'Continue Playing' and 'Popular in Your Area' sections. Images are now large, include titles, and hover to a preview of gameplay.
We also noticed that controls were often missing in game UI, and providing more information to boost SEO was pushing the instructions to the point where it was difficult for users to find. We solved this by adding a new "Controls" menu in frame with the game.
Other upgrades to the game pages include minimized scrolling, seamless mobile navigation, less cluttered ads, favorite game functionality, and a game progress system that can be enjoyed by all players.
The Impact
Improvements to the game pages saw increased engagement, longer sessions, and overall positive feedback.
+37% User engagement
+12% Conversion rate of recommended content
The Future
Further feedback and testing has shown that we should continue to iterate on the recommended sections for our end users. We've already rolled out changes to "You'll Also Like" that performed better through testing.
Navigation & Search
Overview
Coolmath Game's navigation and search had the largest room for accessibility and UX improvements. One of the primary ways users discover and select games to play is by category, so we created category dropdowns in the nav and expanded our search to include categories in addition to games.
Other goals for the nav were informed by best practices and research. We made it sticky, ensured that keyboard users could navigate with ease, and added language selection— for our users with a preferred language in the US or abroad. Since Coolmath Games is a high traffic and valued site, we rolled out the nav with a similar brand header first, to make sure the update wouldn't be too jarring for our loyal users.
Coolmath’s search saw major improvements following the release of the new navigation. To save our users some clicks, we show trending games and popular searches as suggestions when entering the search experience. We expanded functionality so users can search by description and category in addition to game title, and we added result pages (SERPs). The introduction of SERPs provides a better experience for users who just want to browse, and also presents them with tailored suggestions when the site is missing a game they search for.
The Impact
In addition to a huge increase in usability, the new nav and search experience met several business goals— among them being increased pageviews, and the ability for the team to run more robust and frequent a/b tests than before.
The Future
The navigation continues to be tested and updated, and there are plans to further improve search— among these are offering suggestions when the user makes a typo, ignoring punctuation (for popular searches like 'Papa's games'), and general bug fixes.
Category Pages
Overview
We had two primary goals for the Collection Pages. For users, we wanted to create a compelling experience where they previously found it lacking. For the business, we wanted to allow Coolmath Games to rank for more keywords.
Users shared that they don't find the tiny thumbnails Coolmath Games once donned engaging enough, so we conducted testing to find that large thumbnails with video previews had a significant impact on engagement.
We also introduced a feature from our users' wishlist: sorting and filtering. It allows them to refine game lists by genre or device, and sort by popularity, release, and title (A-Z and Z-A). This covered the top ways our users like to browse games.
The Impact
We refreshed the category pages twice during my time at Coolmath Games, and the refreshed experience had significant outcomes. It's evolved into a great way for players to discover more games.
+13% Session duration
-11% Bounce Rate
+75% Pageviews
After the first refresh in 2022, I proposed and designed a new "All Categories" page that allows players to explore more categories without the use of a separate search engine.
The Future
The category pages need further research to inform top & sub category naming and structuring, as we've found these can be confusing for users.
