Casual Gamers
Motivation
- Competitivity (showing skill)
- Winning non-cash prizes
- Free entry / low cost
Pain Points
- Fragmentation: don't know where to find events or professional opportunities
- Don't have enough time to practice or play
UX/UI · Mobile Platform · Esports
Designing LATAM's first esports career platform
The mobile platform helping LATAM gamers go pro.
The Challenge
“There was no path from casual player to pro — just a maze of disconnected platforms.”
Pro-players juggled multiple platforms and Discord servers just to compete. Casual players had no clear path to turn professional — and no way to get noticed by teams looking for them.
The Solution
One app. Tournaments to compete, achievements to grow, and a direct line to teams hiring — collapsing the maze into a single path.
- Validated through user testing
- Met all core business objectives
- Approved & handed off to dev
114
Survey responses
8
In-depth interviews across 4 user types
14 reduced to 5
Features prioritized
1
Validated MVP
The Process
Structuring the design strategy
The project followed the Double Diamond methodology to ensure every design choice was grounded in user research and business viability — from discovering the real user problems to delivering a validated MVP ready for development.
-
1
Discover
- Initial population segmentation
- Interviews & surveys
- Competition analysis
-
2
Define
- Created user personas
- Defined core problems
- Customer Journey Mapping to uncover pain points in tournament enrolling
-
3
Develop
- Team & stakeholder brainstorming sessions
- Value + Usage Matrix to prioritize features
- Developed user flows
-
4
Deliver
- Produced high-fidelity Figma MVP Prototype + social media content ideas
- Stakeholder approval and hand-off for development
Discover & Define
Defining user needs through data
I based the strategy on both qualitative and quantitative data. I first segmented our population using the Gaming personas article by Global Web Index, which allowed me to target two key groups: Casual Gamers and Esporters / Pro-Players. I then validated their needs and motivations through interviews and surveys.
Key Insights
Esporters / Pro-Players
Motivation
- Cash prizes
- Competing against national or international talent
- Community building
Pain Points
- Overwhelm
- Multiple sites for tournaments
- Too many Discord servers for communication
Mapping and Defining the Problem (Customer Journey)
To ensure the problem was fully understood across all touchpoints during the tournament experience, I created a single, comprehensive Customer Journey Map (CJM). This map visualised the current process and pinpointed exact pain points across six critical stages during tournaments: Discovery, Registration (Platform), Registration (External), Pre-tournament, Participation, and After tournament.
By analysing user Actions, Touchpoints, Thoughts, and Feelings at each stage, I confirmed the core user problems of fragmentation and system complexity. This deliverable was the final step in defining the problem before moving to solution development.
Insight
Registering for tournaments required jumping between 3–4 platforms — the biggest pain point of the journey.
Competition Gap Analysis
I conducted a competition SWOT analysis on regional and international tournament platforms. The analysis revealed a critical market gap and validated our product idea:
- No Clear Career Path The most critical finding was that no major competitor offered a clear career path or progression system for players wanting to go pro. Existing platforms focused mostly on high-level events or specific games.
- Manual Inefficiency A common point of friction was that on many tournament platforms, players had to manually input their match results, which created mistakes and extra work.
- Limited Scope Existing platforms often focused only on specific games or had small event catalogs, limiting their usefulness to the broader LATAM gaming community.
Develop & Deliver
From ideas to decisions that ship
Ideation and Scoping the MVP
After identifying key opportunities in the CJM, I held brainstorming sessions with stakeholders to generate a wide range of potential solutions. I then used a Value + Usage Matrix to prioritise these ideas, using data collected from a survey to define the user usage score. This ensured the MVP delivered maximum value to users with efficient development effort.
The 5 features that made it into the MVP
Tournament Platform
One place for all free-to-enter tournaments with live score updates (no manual input needed).
Player Progression
Weekly and monthly tasks and achievements to help build skill and keep users engaged.
Recruitment Channel
A feature for pro-teams to see top players and send recruitment messages.
Content Challenges
Weekly events and challenges designed to generate shareable content for social media channels.
Winner Highlights
A dedicated section to showcase tournament champions and top players, driving recognition and aspirational use.
Content Challenges and Winner Highlights extended the experience beyond the app — toward social media reach and community recognition.
Structuring the Experience with Flows
Now that the features were defined, the next step was designing the experience. I focused on the most critical flow: Tournament Registration — the direct response to the biggest pain point identified in the Customer Journey.
This flow was kept simple, serving primarily as a personal guide for screen creation, ensuring that every step addressed the pain points identified in the research. It doesn't represent the final flow in the app, as different changes were made during the screen creation process.
Tournament Registration
Key Design Decisions
Three decisions shaped the MVP. Each one solved a user need and a business need at the same time — the leverage points where the design earned its keep.
Live tournaments first — solves overwhelm for pros
Sponsor space built into the structure
Single CTA — less decision fatigue
- a Live tournaments first — solves overwhelm for pros.
- b Sponsor space built into the structure.
- c Single CTA — less decision fatigue.
Decision
Consolidating the Competitive Hub
I made the Main Page the single entry point — one list of live tournaments. The Tournament Page doubles as sponsor real estate, solving fragmentation for pro-players and the guidance gap for casual users at the same time.
EXP bar drives daily return
Achievement badges — visible status
Profile doubles as recruitment funnel
- a EXP bar drives daily return.
- b Achievement badges — visible status.
- c Profile doubles as a recruitment funnel.
Decision
Engineering the Visible Career Path
Player progression is surfaced across every profile screen — EXP, achievements, and global rankings. The structure also doubles as a recruitment funnel for Altar Esports, the professional team behind the platform.
Decision
Driving Engagement through Content and Recognition
Engagement and recognition extended outside the app: weekly Content Challenges drove skill growth, and Winner Highlights amplified player visibility through the company’s 100K+ social audience — a direct pathway to Altar Esports recruitment.
Conclusion & Takeaways
What this project proved
Key Takeaway
Working on a fragmented market taught me that the hardest design decision isn't what to build — it's what to leave out. Of 14 candidate features, only 5 made it into the MVP, and that prioritization mattered more than any pixel.