Second draft

While documenting yesterday’s wireframe prototype, I realized that by having separate screens for My Collection, Wish List, and Search, the user would have to remember whether a game was in their collection or wish list to find it. I realized that by centralizing the search, we could make it much easier to find games without remembering if you already had it or not. This was a central part of the problem we want to solve!

This second wireframe prototype took less than an hour to put together.

As part of this, I renamed “My Collection” to “My Library.” I didn’t like the term “Collection” for two reasons: First, BoardGameGeek uses the term collection to mean all games added to your profile, regardless of what tag it belongs to. This might confuse BGG users since our use is a bit more specific. Second, we intend that this list be the physical games you own. I chose “My Library” because it implies ownership, or a sense thereof, and is a common term in other products and services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Steam. A collection, on the other hand, is more akin to tags or boards and is common for bookmarking and curating content that exists elsewhere.

I combined the My Library, Wish List, and Search sections into a single screen. The user sees My Library as the default filter for the games list and can switch to Wish List and The Hotness (a list generated by BGG that is great for discovery).

The user can also search the entire BGG database from this view using text and, ideally, optionally with their phone’s camera, much in the same way people can scan books using the Goodreads app or any product using the Amazon app.

Next to each game in the list, the user can quickly see if the game is already in their library or wish list, and can quickly add it to either one if they so choose.

While searching, the list’s segmented controls go away since the goal is to allow the user to find the matching game regardless of which list its in. As always, they can quickly see which list a game is already in, or add it to their Library or Wish List directly from this view.

Similar to the initial wireframe, the user can drill into any game. From here the can also add and remove games from their wish list and library.

The details pages are still pretty sparse and U want to do another round for improving the distinction of which list the game is in, as well as improving the affordance that you can add or move the game to your library or wish list. There are also some cool opportunities to include some gestures as we begin to polish the experience.

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