The UX Challenges of Adapting Classic UNO to Mobile

Hello, I'm JJ, producer of Uno. Today, I'm going to introduce the UX work of Uno with our UX design leader, CC. Before I start, I want to ask you a question. Have you heard of Uno? I believe most of you have played Uno cards. Uno board game was invited in 1971. Then, has been enjoying its 40-year-long popularity. And we just launched our Uno mobile game in 2019. The mobile game is a new platform for Uno. It allows us to play Uno at any time, even without carrying a deck of cards. After Uno mobile game launched in 150 countries, we found 93% of Uno mobile games players

have played other version of Uno. Obviously, most of the players are actually fans of classic Uno and very familiar with Uno. This number really shocked us, but it also proved that we were using the right design approaching in the development process. So, what have we done to give players the classic and the unique Uno? And finally, make it available to players to play Uno all over the world anytime, anywhere. We encountered some problems, but finally found the corresponding solutions. Next, CC will talk about the UX strategies to adapt the classic Uno to mobile. Hello, I'm CC. Let's talk about our design journey from a few keywords.

First, cards. Initially, we arranged the cards in a tiled way, but it's a rigid design that makes you feel like you're playing with a robot. Of course, this version of the design is very simple, quickly implemented, and the the cost is very low. Once the core gameplay has been verified, we began to modify the way how cards present. We need to study how players hold cards when playing Uno board games. To tackle this problem, we organized a group of players to play Uno, and the designers came to observe them. Then, we took a photo like this. When the players hold cards, because of the palm structure and the

posture, the card will show a certain arc. And in order to prevent opponents from peeking, they will turn their hands sideways. But the cards in our game are laid directly on the table. In real life, it's impossible to have such a situation. Because from this perspective, we can't see the front of the card. We tried to use law of closure to design the layout of cards. When we found ourselves looking at 3D cards, it's natural to think of a hand holding them. Because it can remind us of playing Uno with our friends. So, we made an important decision, designing the card in 3D on a table as if someone were holding them. This took us a lot of development costs.

But it's worth it and the final effect is very nice. After we solved the problem of holding cards, we started to look at the user interactions in different modes. This is 2v2 mode and I can see my teammates' cards. But when my teammate has a lot of cards, how can I see them clearly? Tap to enlarge your teammates' card directly or slow down and using the previous design approach, continue to study the behavior of Uno board game players when they are playing cards. This is a picture of player holding a hand of cards. When playing Uno board game, people are used to deciding which color to play first, then holding a visually focused card

close to themselves and picking it out individually. We learned the from Uno board game and designed our mobile game card viewing experience. Just tap on the cards of your teammate and the touched cards will be held by an invisible hand. We let the four surrounding cards be lifted at the same time for comparison purpose. After solving the card problem, make the core gameplay smooth become the next problem to be solved. Uno's calling Uno is the most exciting part of playing Uno. However, it's not feasible for mobile device to calling Uno directly. We can't recognize it uh perfectly by voice on the mobile phone platform. And

uh when players play mobile phones, it's not suitable to shout all the time, which is easier to scare others. Because the players are not face-to-face, they are facing a phone. For the design of calling Uno, we designed the Uno button on the right. Players tap on the button is calling Uno. But we also considered players' habits, especially when playing Uno mobile game offline with friends. They may blurt out "Uno". So, we designed an extra voice recognition function, voice Uno. Once opened, the players can call Uno just like they do in Uno board game. And uh kids can easily use this check to call Uno. But that's just an additional option.

You can turn it on and off. Next, rules. This case is about rules. Classical Uno is flexible, and we can create new rules. However, there are different rules in different countries. In mobile device, it's impossible if we try to put 100 plus rules of game mode for all players to choose. Therefore, designers needed to figure out what is really good design to solve this problem. In the beginning, game designers planned to apply such optional rule functions where players can choose the rules they like. This is a good idea, but not a good UI design. All the optional rules are listed above. There are too many options and there is

no space on a mobile screen to port more. And then players start a new game with different group of players, they will have to adjust the rule options. Hick's law described that with more options, the time for players to make decisions will increase. For mobile games, our original design might have directly leaded to the loss of players. We changed the way of thinking and tried to figure out whether we can use the design to solve the needs of all players for different rules. And it turns out that we redefined the different rules into different game modes, which makes changing game modes much easier than adjusting different rule options. We just provide rules and the players

are the real game designers because they can edit their own game modes. Meanwhile, editing rules and game modes by dragging cards are much easier for players to understand. After such design improvements, there are fewer options and players can spend less time on selection. Now players can make 488 different game modes with this. We are planning to put more and more game rules into our game for players to choose. The most important takeaway here is that we study players habits of playing Uno card games and then turn them into a design suitable for mobile device. We do creative designs based on mobile device features, but not just uh simply

restore the classic Uno. If you want to put a classic game on another platform and uh make it more popular, try to think about how players experience it on previous platform and uh what are the core experience is. Then keep the core experience and make your own innovations. So, you may be able to figure out where is your direction of design. Thank you. If you want to play Uno anytime, anywhere, download it.