Palorant was designed with the goal of creating a safe and comfortable environment for VALORANT players who identify as a women to be able to connect and play together without the fear of judgement, discrimination, and harassment.
96% successful task completion rate
100% of participants would like to see this concept developed
Note: I understand that women are not the only group that faces toxicity in gaming. For the scope of this project, I am focusing solely on women and anyone who identifies as a woman.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Riot Games or VALORANT in any way. I'm just a huge fan and have tons of respect for their work! I do not claim ownership of any official art, fan art, or images from streamers used in the mockups.
VALORANT is a popular FPS game developed by Riot Games in 2020. It quickly rose to being one of the most popular FPS games, attracting both women* and men players, with 30-40% of the players being women1. Despite the strong presence of women in the game, they are still constantly experiencing gender-based harassment and discrimination while playing the game.
*Note: Women are not the only marginalized group in the gaming community. However, for the scope of this project, I will be focusing mainly on women.
Women VALORANT players do not feel safe or welcomed by other players in their games and have to live in constant fear of getting harassed, and when they do experience harassment in game, it ruins the fun and experience for them.
I conducted secondary research and remote user inteviews with women VALORANT players in order to better understand:
What players experience in game
How the players deal with and prevent harassment and discrimination
What motivates the players to continue playing the game
Players find that playing with other women in the team makes them feel safer and comfortable than when playing with a team of men.
Players enjoy playing the game with their friends or occasionally befriending nice players in game. Playing alone is less fun for players.
Players hide their gender by using methods like changing their in-game name to be more masculine sounding or using a voice changer.
Players experience verbal harassment, as well as in-game sabotage such as throwing skills at the player or hindering the players’ movements.
Toxic players ruin the game experience
Playing alone because her friends are offline
Play VALORANT without getting harassed for being a woman
Meet other players who are friendly and fun to play with
Mapping out the player's journey allowed me to discover that there was an opportunity to prevent players' from queueing up into a toxic game before they even log into VALORANT.
The differentiating factor between my product and its competitors is that it is a dedicated platform for women VALORANT players and offers quick and easy team finding and a dedicated social community beyond the game.
Discord server
Website and mobile app
Marginalized genders (female, trans, non-binary)
Gamers of all genders
VALORANT
Variety of games including VALORANT
Chat with Players
Player Ranks
Search and Filter
Reviews
Add a Friend
Team Matching
Free to Use
Empty
Empty
Limited to Discord server and the features that Discord has to offer
Women on ePal often still face sexual harassment from users on the platform
Users have to pay the player in order to play a game with them
I revised my original HMW statement after I gained more insight from qualitative research data. Players have a higher risk of facing toxicity when they play alone with random people. In cases where players play with another woman and/or with their friends, the risk diminishes.
I ideated on possible product features and prioritized them based on what are must-haves to have a successful launch, nice-to-haves if time allows, and in-the-future for future product updates.
I conducted moderated usability tests with players to get initial feedback and address any confusion or difficulty players may encounter.
How do players feel about the length and contents of the onboarding flow?
Do players prefer a horizontal or vertical scroll when viewing teams and players?
Is there any information missing from teams or player profiles that are important to players?
Do players understand copy, such as 'honor', 'fill', and so on?
I wanted to create a more inclusive brand towards anyone who identifies as a woman.
I wanted the brand to feel like it’s safe, comfortable, and welcoming to players.
I wanted the brand to stay on top of trends and follow current best UX practices.
I wanted to focus on designing in dark mode after learning that many gamers prefer to use dark mode because it reduces strain on their eyes, especially when playing long hours into the late night.
I mimicked dominant elements of the official VALORANT branding in order to make the product feel more familiar to players.
I tested the final, high fidelity designs with a group of 4 participants — 1 participant was from the first round of tests— to test whether the full experience was functionally intuitive and if the iterations made were effective.
The player who participated in the first round of tests mentioned they loved how the app turned out and that the changes I made were great improvements.
It was tricky figuring out how to be inclusive of when my product is targeted to women and anyone who identifies as a women. There’s a lot I still have to learn about using the right language to be inclusive of everyone’s identity.
I learned a lot about best design practices for dark mode, such as elevation, using gray, and desaturating colors. As dark mode becomes more common, it will be important in order to become a better designer to be familiar in designing for both light and dark modes.
