Nexus Play · Process

The full process

The research, personas and flows behind Nexus Play. The case study covers the decisions; this is the work underneath them.

02 — User Research

User Persona & Goals

Understanding who we design for — their motivations, goals, and pain points.

👤
Vikram Nair
Casual Gamer, 22
  • Find a fun game to play in under 30 seconds
  • Launch and play without any downloads or installs
  • Save progress and return to games later
  • Slow game loading kills the impulse to play
  • Intrusive ads and no intelligent game discovery
🧑
Sneha Pillai
Student Gamer, 19
  • Play quick games during breaks between classes
  • Discover what's trending among friends
  • Share favourite games on social platforms
  • No social features to see what friends are playing
  • Repetitive game catalogues with no fresh content
👩
Abhishek Joshi
Hardcore Gamer, 28
  • Access a premium library of high-quality browser games
  • Compete on global leaderboards and track rankings
  • Play offline without loss of progress
  • Performance issues and frame drops mid-game
  • No competitive features or leaderboards on existing platforms

03 — Business Challenges

Core Challenges

The platform problems preventing Nexus Play from retaining and growing its player base.

🔍

Game Discovery Problem

70% of users on competing platforms couldn't find a relevant game in under 30 seconds. Poor taxonomy and zero personalisation mean users give up before they ever play.

Performance & Load Times

Slow-loading games on mobile networks kill the impulse to play. Every second of load time increases the probability of abandonment exponentially.

💰

Monetisation Without Disruption

68% of users churn within 3 sessions largely due to intrusive ads. Balancing revenue requirements with a distraction-free experience is the platform's central tension.

🔄

User Retention

Without social features, leaderboards, or personalised recommendations, there is no hook to bring casual players back after their first session ends.


04 — Secondary Research

Market Insights

Market Size
2.8B
Casual Gamers Globally
The casual gaming market represents 2.8 billion players worldwide — the largest addressable audience in gaming, yet systematically underserved by quality browser platforms.
Retention Crisis
68%
Churn Within First 3 Sessions
Industry benchmarks show 68% of browser gaming users churn within their first three sessions — primarily due to poor discovery, ads overload, and lack of quality curated content.
Library Quality
145
Games in Premium Library
Nexus Play's curated library of 145 premium titles represents a deliberate quality-over-quantity approach — every game is hand-selected across 14 validated genres.

07 — User Flow

The Journey

01
Landing
Immersive homepage with featured picks, trending games, and curated collections
02
Browse / Search
14 genre categories with smart multi-select filters and persistent search surface
03
Game Preview
Hover to preview looping gameplay animation before committing to launch
04
Launch Game
Instant 3-second launch with no downloads, installs, or friction barriers
05
Play
Distraction-free fullscreen mode with minimal chrome and one-click exit control
06
Rate & Save
Post-session rating prompt and save to collection for future sessions

08 — Toolkits

Tools & Workflow

The tools and methods used throughout the design process.

🎨
Figma
UI Design & Prototyping
🗂️
FigJam
IA Mapping & Ideation
🔥
Hotjar
Session Recording & Heatmaps
📊
Mixpanel
Product Analytics & Funnel Analysis
📋
Notion
Research Documentation & Planning

02 — Process

From chaos to
cohesive system.

A five-phase design process that moved from competitive audit and user research through to a scalable component library — always anchored to the core tension of immersion vs. discoverability.

01
Research
Competitive audit of 12 browser gaming portals. 24 user interviews. Session recordings on existing platforms revealed key drop-off patterns and unmet needs.
02
Information Architecture
Defined a game taxonomy across 14 categories. Designed a card-sorting-validated navigation structure that put the most-played categories within one tap.
03
Game Discovery System
Built a multi-dimensional filtering UI — genre, multiplayer, device type, play duration — reducing average time-to-first-game from 45s to under 12s in usability testing.
04
Visual Design & Accessibility
Developed the dark gaming aesthetic with the purple/cyan palette. Designed a full component library: game cards, category pills, hero banners, fullscreen mode UI, mobile bottom navigation. The dark background creates an immersive game-like environment — and dark-mode-first design typically performs better on contrast ratios for coloured UI elements. All interactive components pass WCAG AA. Touch targets on mobile were set to a minimum of 48px — critical for a gaming platform where users are often in motion or distracted.
05
Performance Optimization
Collaborated with engineering on lazy-loading strategies, preloading game assets on card hover, and a 3-second average launch time — no downloads, no barriers, instant play.

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