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UFOs in thequiet forest.
A full redesign of the game loop, onboarding, and navigation system for a casual mobile game — without ever changing a single mechanic.
UX/UI
Role
IoT
×
Senior Care
Context
Care center staff
Users
Game UX
IoT
In-house · NDA
scroll
%
dropped off before finishing the tutorial
%
dropped off before finishing the tutorial
%
dropped off before finishing the tutorial
The problem
Four small frictions,
one delayed activity.
Observing staff use the original interface, four pain points kept showing up. Individually small.
Together, enough to make caregivers ask a colleague for help — delaying the actual game session for the elderly.
01 / Jargon
Words made for engineers
"Scanned", "Connected", "Refresh" — system states, not human actions. Staff weren't sure which side meant what.
Icon confusion
Inventory illegible
14 unlabelled icons in the inventory panel — indistinguishable at a glance for 6–8 year olds.
Constraint
Mechanics are locked
Core gameplay was fixed — only UI, flow, and onboarding were in scope. Pure communication design.
Audience
Literacy can't be assumed
Target age range is 6–12. At age 6, many players rely entirely on visual and audio cues — not text.
Process
Watching first,
designing second
Unmoderated observation sessions
12 children played the existing game while I watched silently. Every hesitation, mis-tap, and confused glance was noted. No prompts, no help — pure behaviour.
12 participants · ages 6–11
01
Exit-point mapping
Plotted every quit point on the game flow. Three friction clusters surfaced: inventory, objective clarity, and accidental nav taps. These became the design brief.
Journey mapping · affinity clustering
02
6 low-fi paper prototypes
Explored icon-label pairing, colour-coded inventory groups, animated cues that guide without text. Tested each variant with 3 children per round — fast and cheap.
Paper prototyping · rapid iteration
03
3 rounds of hi-fi playtesting
Each round sharpened tap-target size, icon distinctiveness, and tutorial pacing. Iterated from what I saw, not what kids said — they rarely articulate friction, they just stop playing.
Figma prototypes · think-aloud sessions
04
Dev collaboration & launch
Annotated Figma handoff across 3 engineers in 2-week sprints. Edge-case decisions logged in shared doc so nothing got lost in translation.
Figma · 2-week sprints · 3 engineers
05
Artefacts
What the work
looked like
Game-flow exit-point map
Paper sketches
Icon exploration sheet
Wireframe v3
Outcomes
Numbers that made
the team cheer
68%
→ 21%
Tutorial drop-off rate
+44%
Day-7 player retention
3.9
→
4.6
★
App store rating
Reflection
"
The biggest lesson was designing for someone who can't yet tell you what's wrong. Watching a 7-year-old silently tap the wrong button three times in a row taught me more than any surveyever could.
— Chan Cheuk Yin · personal reflection
Game UX
IoT
In-house · NDA
UFOs in the quiet forest.
A redesign of the IoT sensors (Oplate 小黑盤) pairing screen used by elderly care center staff — replacing technical setup with a small, friendly narrative so non-technical caregivers can connect motion sensors to the smart TV without help, anxiety, or training.
UX/UI
Role
IoT
×
Senior Care
Context
Care center staff
Users
scroll
%
dropped off before finishing the tutorial
%
dropped off before finishing the tutorial
%
dropped off before finishing the tutorial
The problem
Four small frictions,
one delayed activity.
Observing staff use the original interface, four pain points kept showing up. Individually small.Together, enough to make caregivers ask a colleague for help — delaying the actual game session for the elderly.
01 / Jargon
Words made for engineers
"Scanned", "Connected", "Refresh" — system states, not human actions. Staff weren't sure which side meant what.
Icon confusion
Inventory illegible
14 unlabelled icons in the inventory panel — indistinguishable at a glance for 6–8 year olds.
Constraint
Mechanics are locked
Core gameplay was fixed — only UI, flow, and onboarding were in scope. Pure communication design.
Audience
Literacy can't be assumed
Target age range is 6–12. At age 6, many players rely entirely on visual and audio cues — not text.
Process
Watching first,
designing second
Unmoderated observation sessions
12 children played the existing game while I watched silently. Every hesitation, mis-tap, and confused glance was noted. No prompts, no help — pure behaviour.
12 participants · ages 6–11
01
Exit-point mapping
Plotted every quit point on the game flow. Three friction clusters surfaced: inventory, objective clarity, and accidental nav taps. These became the design brief.
Journey mapping · affinity clustering
02
6 low-fi paper prototypes
Explored icon-label pairing, colour-coded inventory groups, animated cues that guide without text. Tested each variant with 3 children per round — fast and cheap.
Paper prototyping · rapid iteration
03
3 rounds of hi-fi playtesting
Each round sharpened tap-target size, icon distinctiveness, and tutorial pacing. Iterated from what I saw, not what kids said — they rarely articulate friction, they just stop playing.
Figma prototypes · think-aloud sessions
04
Dev collaboration & launch
Annotated Figma handoff across 3 engineers in 2-week sprints. Edge-case decisions logged in shared doc so nothing got lost in translation.
Figma · 2-week sprints · 3 engineers
05
Artefacts
What the work
looked like
Game-flow exit-point map
Paper sketches
Icon exploration sheet
Wireframe v3
Outcomes
Numbers that made
the team cheer
68%
→ 21%
Tutorial drop-off rate
+44%
Day-7 player retention
3.9
→
4.6
★
App store rating
Reflection
"
The biggest lesson was designing for someone who can't yet tell you what's wrong. Watching a 7-year-old silently tap the wrong button three times in a row taught me more than any surveyever could.
— Chan Cheuk Yin · personal reflection
Game UX
IoT
In-house · NDA
UFOs in the quiet forest.
A redesign of the IoT sensors (Oplate 小黑盤) pairing screen used by elderly care center staff — replacing technical setup with a small, friendly narrative so non-technical caregivers can connect motion sensors to the smart TV without help, anxiety, or training.
UX/UI
Role
IoT
×
Senior Care
Context
Care center staff
Users
scroll
%
dropped off before finishing the tutorial
%
dropped off before finishing the tutorial
%
dropped off before finishing the tutorial
The problem
Four small frictions,
one delayed activity.
Observing staff use the original interface, four pain points kept showing up. Individually small.Together, enough to make caregivers ask a colleague for help — delaying the actual game session for the elderly.
01 / Jargon
Words made for engineers
"Scanned", "Connected", "Refresh" — system states, not human actions. Staff weren't sure which side meant what.
Icon confusion
Inventory illegible
14 unlabelled icons in the inventory panel — indistinguishable at a glance for 6–8 year olds.
Constraint
Mechanics are locked
Core gameplay was fixed — only UI, flow, and onboarding were in scope. Pure communication design.
Audience
Literacy can't be assumed
Target age range is 6–12. At age 6, many players rely entirely on visual and audio cues — not text.
Process
Watching first,
designing second
Unmoderated observation sessions
12 children played the existing game while I watched silently. Every hesitation, mis-tap, and confused glance was noted. No prompts, no help — pure behaviour.
12 participants · ages 6–11
01
Exit-point mapping
Plotted every quit point on the game flow. Three friction clusters surfaced: inventory, objective clarity, and accidental nav taps. These became the design brief.
Journey mapping · affinity clustering
02
6 low-fi paper prototypes
Explored icon-label pairing, colour-coded inventory groups, animated cues that guide without text. Tested each variant with 3 children per round — fast and cheap.
Paper prototyping · rapid iteration
03
3 rounds of hi-fi playtesting
Each round sharpened tap-target size, icon distinctiveness, and tutorial pacing. Iterated from what I saw, not what kids said — they rarely articulate friction, they just stop playing.
Figma prototypes · think-aloud sessions
04
Dev collaboration & launch
Annotated Figma handoff across 3 engineers in 2-week sprints. Edge-case decisions logged in shared doc so nothing got lost in translation.
Figma · 2-week sprints · 3 engineers
05
Artefacts
What the work
looked like
Game-flow exit-point map
Paper sketches
Icon exploration sheet
Wireframe v3
Outcomes
Numbers that made
the team cheer
68%
→ 21%
Tutorial drop-off rate
+44%
Day-7 player retention
3.9
→
4.6
★
App store rating
Reflection
"
The biggest lesson was designing for someone who can't yet tell you what's wrong. Watching a 7-year-old silently tap the wrong button three times in a row taught me more than any surveyever could.
— Chan Cheuk Yin · personal reflection