Friends List
Social meta-feature
The Friends List is a social feature designed to enhance the experience of POP! Slots players by allowing them to see which of their friends are online and where they "physically" are in the game—either spinning or wandering around. This feature also enables players to join their friends' games or invite friends to join their own.
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My Role
My responsibilities in this project included characterizing the Friends List feature and determining how to integrate it throughout the app. Later in the project, I took on the role of its creative leader.
Feature UX
During the UX phase, I explored various options for presenting each friend's information. Ultimately, the team and I decided on the most straightforward and coherent solution. This option included details about each friend, such as their profile picture or avatar, name, country flag, level, and status (whether they are online and their location in the game).
By tapping on a friend's component, a dynamic tooltip appears, offering options to join a game with that friend, invite them to play, or remove them from the list. This tooltip was designed to accommodate future functionalities, such as a shared progress bar, the option to send gifts, and more.
Below are some of the Friends List UX mockups:
Notifications
With the launch of the Friends List feature, we also introduced a notification system that appears throughout the game. The main idea is to notify players when their friends are online, whether they are in the player's environment, and more. These notifications are also used to accept a friend's invitation to join their game.
Examples of different functionalities and sizes for notifications
Launch
With the launch of the new social feature, we introduced a series of events that encouraged inviting friends and playing together. Alongside these events, players received informative messages about the Friends List.
Here are some of the pop-ups from the first few days that accompanied the launch of the Friends List feature:
We've designed the Friends List so that if a player doesn't have any friends yet, they will see a generic state. Alternatively, if a social event is live, they will receive a call-out inviting them to join it:
More ways to invite friends
The members on the list are gathered from the player's Facebook friends, as well as anyone invited through third-party apps like text messages, WhatsApp, or email using an external link. If a player wishes to remove a member from the list, they can easily do so by clicking on the member component and selecting the "Remove" button.
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Voice Chat
A sub-feature that we've invested in, made possible by the Friends List feature, is voice chat. When a pair of friends (or more) sit down to play in the same environment, a new button will appear for them at the bottom left of the screen, adjacent to the Friends List button. Pressing this button enables the player to use their phone's microphone to chat with their friends.
A short press on the button toggles between active and muted mode. A long press turns the feature on and off, revealing or hiding the player's presence in the voice chat. Each state is accompanied by a small tooltip.
Above are some of the Voice Chat feature states and their corresponding tooltips.
The Future of the Friends List
This feature opens the door to numerous interactions, events, games, and other social features, enhancing the pure enjoyment of playing with friends. POP! Slots players were very enthusiastic about the feature's launch, and it appears that over time, more players are joining the game with their friends and expanding their friends lists.