CeebUI

UI training initiative for 2D artist

Client

Product Type

CerebralFix

Master of UX design

Internal training initiative

Year

My Role

2024

UX research

Concept development

Prototyping

UI design

Usability testing

CeebUI is an interactive guidebook on Game User Interface, created as an internal training initiative to help CerebralFix’s 2D game artists enhance their UI skillsets.

This project is my personal Capstone for my Master's degree in User Experience Design, with CerebralFix as the project client.

The goal is to help CerebralFix’s artist team, who mostly come from illustration backgrounds, familiarise themselves with user-centric design principles and improving their skills in creating UI assets for game.

The design outcome is a high-fidelity prototype of CeebUI, an interactive guidebook for Game UI art creation.

DESIGN OUTCOME

CeebUI guidebook is a collection of articles organised under four main topics, designed to help artists feel more prepared and confident when working on Game UI design tasks. Tailored specifically for the Game UI context, CeebUI serves as a reference point, providing foundational knowledge in User Interface design while allowing artists to upskill at their own pace.

DESIGN PROCESS

Within the 8 weeks span of the project, my goal was to define the problem area and come up with a solution concepts. I achieved that using Double Diamond design process.

The first 4 weeks were spent understanding and defining the problem using qualitative research methods and desk research.

The second 4 weeks were used to explore and develop concepts, usability testing and refining the concept that helped and addressed the defined problem.

DISCOVER AND DEFINE

I started my research process by speaking to and spending time with the art leads and the artists. I conducted 2 sets of semi structured interviews along with some desk search to have a better understanding of the project’s challenge, pain points and potential blockers.

Key learnings

The goal of the training initiative is to familiarise artists with UI design.
Artist’s lack of confidence came from a lack of understanding of UI practices and learning curves concerns.
Artists recognise the value of UI training, but don’t think it’s an immediate need.
Artists prefer visual training materials, such as videos.

CONCEPT EXPLORATION

Based on the key takeaways from my research, my initial concepts are looking to fullfil these key features:
Training content should prioritise topics about best practices and fundamental UX principles to help artists address the knowledge gaps in UI/UX design and application.
Visual and practical learning methods are strongly preferred among artists.
Training material should allow artists to learn at their own pace. The aim is to help artist prepare themselves when working on UI design tasks - Limited time, narrow search, examples and reference focus.

LOW-FI PROTOTYPE

I went with Exploration 3 - Guidebook with some modifications: instead of using the current platform with limited design agency, I created an interactive prototype of the Guidebook using Figma, where I would be able to build my own layout and userflow.

USABILITY TESTING

Using the prototype I developed above, I conducted 3 usability testing sessions with 3 target users, ranging from beginner to intermediate UI proficiency. The testing objectives were:
Testing the concept: Would that be helpful with the artists? How would the artist use it? Would it address the key problems?
Testing the UX of the concepts: Navigation, readability, UX writing
Testing the media: To see how the user engaged with video and written documents.

THE DELIVERABLES

Learning from the first prototype usability testing result, I developed a high-fidelity prototype of the guidebook, which I called CeebUI, inspired from CerebralFix’s mascot - Ceeb. As this is an internal tool, I took inspiration from CerebralFix branding elements to create CeebUI’s design system, aiming to have the look and feel cohesive with other CerebralFix branded products.

CeebUI is an on-going project and I’m looking to implement this guidebook in the near future. The current platform and tools I’m using for this product is Figma, where I was able to collaboratively work with other experts in the organisation to expand the contents for CeebUI.

Key Iterations

RETROSPECTIVE

“To design the best UX, pay attention to what users do, not what they say”

While it’s the UX designer job to listen to the users, people usually don’t know what they really want. The feedback can be influenced by biases, faulty memories or other factors. By using different methods to collect the data like interview and usability testing, I was able to interpret and look into the Why of the feedback, which gave me a clearer indication of what the user really needs.

“Don’t underestimate the importance of UX writing”

Just like visual and interaction design, writing also plays an important parts in communicating and guiding users throughout the experience. Using consistent, comprehensive, simple and clear language would help users understand the content faster, allowing them to quickly get to what they need.