Creating Hummmm… a candy-making experience
How to make candy customization a fun game with a purchase at the end.
This is my final student project and I start with half of the normal time because I previously failed my research process. (see link)
My mentors assign me to a new mission:
Create a candy customization experience for a candy maker and also sell Piñata for their birthday…
Papabubble is a premium handcrafted candy maker
This company is selling those awesome looking candies that they make directly in the store. They manage to incorporate those tiny details by hand and host regular shows about their making process. It’s already a fun experience just to come to see it.
The candies are expensive and so they are marketed in a premium packaging that makes you want to keep it as a piece of art almost.
The crowd of Papabubble is quite diverse, there are some tourists, but it’s mostly family and very old children I would say. People come there to have a bit of fun and they really enjoy their candies. They are serious about candy.
The usual journey is that someone thinks about having some candies for an event. End up visiting the Papabubble store or website, select some product and have their party a bit later one.
My goal here is to hook them with a fun experience or game to make them happy to visit our store.
My first idea
One of my curse or one my strength is to have clearly developed idea very fast in my head. During the first night, I already arrive with this fun game idea where you would evolve on a 3D space to smash piñatas and unlock elements that you would then use for the customization.
I did some more ideations and research to identify what is really needed and what is to avoid in this environment like this.
The big problems
Of course, it is always important to test things out. So I made some wireframes and showed them to people
Basically this solution doesn’t hold up together. Playing a game to then customise a candy is bad for the user, plus if the player is bad he might be sad because he didn’t unlock enough stuff to customize what he wanted.
This also a challenge for me as it requires designing a lot of 3D elements. It shouldn't be a problem for a student project but the problem is that I have no prior skills and I am running out of time.
Finally, it seems that the whole experience is not really fun to have anyway.
Rethinking the experience
I had to reconsider everything and to take a huge bet for the end of my project. At this point, I have burned 3 out of 4 weeks and I don’t have a viable solution.
What I was thinking of doing for my last breath is to make a game that would be like actually making your own. It provides a mini easy version of what their shows and workshop already are. And the customization part is integrated into the game itself, not as a separated experience.
And this is how it would look like to create a candy in this game.
Of course, the project is also to sell a Piñata and I needed to have accessories and all sorts without forgetting actually ending up with a payment.
To be more accessible for people I also thought it would be nice to have a mobile experience for this game.
The new problems
At the end of the day, I did present the last solutions to my mentors. And it failed again. Playing the game is too much of a hassle if your goal is only to customize a candy.
If this project was following pure UX, usability, accessibility and nothing else, this is what it would have looked like. You can make it in a day, and people will forget about it in the same amount of time.
I choose to make a game and do something against everything I have learned it seems.
Learning & Thoughts
This project was like driving the Titanic
It was really hard to do the right research and to communicate with my stakeholder. I was running toward the iceberg, unable to negotiate a change of direction and at full speed because running out of time.
I learned how to make dirty quick design prototype
All of my previous projects are this really nicely organised sketch file with style guides and design systems. Trully nice to work with and iterate, but really long to make.
This, however, is a true instance of rapid prototyping where yes it is a mess in the back end but the visuals just hold up. It makes you save a lot of production time.
This was proof of my weakness at doing research
I came to this UX Bootcamp wanting to be a UX designer, and after 5 months I was confident to have learned something valuable. Something I could leverage and grow for the rest of my career.
The truth is, it’s probably not enough and I am really bad at research.
I really improved my UI and visual skills that is for sure. But I am not that much of a designer, to be honest.
Endnotes
The class has come to an end and While I trully enjoyed it this last project was a rollercoaster to me. A think it’s safe to say that given the world global pandemic we are all having a hard time.
My job is now to refocus on what I can do and what I am good at and enjoy doing. And we will see what the future will be.
