I want to live in a world where Dungeons & Dragons is accessible for everyone, so I guess I need to make that world myself
Disclaimer: Dungeons & Dragons is property of Wizards of the Coast. Any and all branding or information shown here belongs to WOTC and is used solely for educational/personal purposes with no intent for infringement, distribution, or commercial use.
How I contributed…
End-to-end involvement from ideation to creation
Strategic long term planning of the impact this could have on the platform
The impact I had…
88% reduction in onboarding time
60% reduction in complex decision making
Things I’m proud of…
Reorganizing vast amounts of complicated information into more digestible amounts
Pioneering a more accessible onboarding experience for all ages
Morning coffee in one hand, magic communication brick in the other, I’m doing my morning scrolling. I’ve gone through all the standard tabs already: Wordle, Webtoon, Discord, LinkedIn… then I check my Slack.
Random User In A Random Server: Participate in a 24-hour design challenge this weekend!
I love a challenge, and better yet, I love finding efficiency where I can. I follow the link and read the rules, what few there are. There’s no set theme, no prizes, nothing but a deadline and a sense of camaraderie.
Lord of the Rings meme, saying: “One does not simply skip a weekend challenge.”
Deciding on a worthwhile cause is really getting to the heart of the problem before you jump to a solution
Inevitably, I found myself thinking back to my most recent Dungeons & Dragons game. There were five adults and one child who would flit in and out as her attention allowed. It was clear she wanted to be involved, but it was also clear that getting her involved would be a time consuming process that no child would ever sit still for. No matter how badly they wanted it.
How many others, not just children, had been denied access because of the time investment it cost to not only learn all the rules, but make a character?
(And for those not familiar, the most recent publishing of the D&D rulebook copyright Wizards of the Coast 2024 is 384 pages. Three hundred and eighty four. That’s massive for even the most dedicated adult.)
And with only 24 hours, what could I do about it? I’d found my problem, but what was the MVP I could come out with on the other side?
When time is short, sort out priorities and do what you can, the best you can
I certainly wasn’t going to be able to rewrite three hundred and eighty four pages in a day. That left character creation. It was a monstrosity of a process and although the D&D app had done its best to streamline the process, there was no getting around certain decisions.
Flow chart detailing the character creation process for Dungeons & Dragons, specifically showcasing five major decision points.
Every green diamond is a major decision point that requires a depth of understanding entirely dependent on your ability to absorb and parse information. On average, it could be anywhere from fifteen minutes to two hours per decision and referencing rules.
Thus begins the stage formally called ideation, but in reality it’s more like throwing stuff at a wall and seeing if it strikes a chord.
Series of post-it notes arranged in a chart detailing different brainstorming options, such as “madlibs style story input” or “personality quiz”.
Then you take that stuff and put it in front of other people and see how they feel about it. For this part I pulled in a volunteer to talk to me about his D&D experience, and what might be helpful for him and his friends.
Post it notes dictating user research results, such as “Any other thoughts? Would really like to have something that could help me explain things I don’t know.”
From this I could extrapolate the following:
It needed to be a mobile product
It needed to be helpful and informative
It needed to take very little time
See, the current D&D app already has a search function to explain the rules. If that wasn’t currently cutting it, then the informative part was still missing. I decided on a two prong approach: first, a condensed character sheet with only the most important and relevant information. Second, a constantly present tooltip that could answer questions. Probably utilizing an LLM to better extract contextual information from the vast database and allow users to more specifically query and conversationally follow up with questions.
Meme of Freddy from Scooby Doo saying “Let’s see who this really is” while revealing the ChatGPT logo to be Clippy from old Microsoft programs.
Redesigning onboarding to take 88% less time and require 60% less complex decision making
This is the part where we need to be really honest with ourselves. What do people actually want when they play D&D? If you aren’t someone who delights in reading a three hundred plus page rulebook, it’s probably storytelling and hanging out with your friends.
This translates to the most important decisions being what your character looks like, what powers they have, and what their goals are. Utilizing a combination of a fill-in-the-blank questionnaire alongside a pick-your-favorite image quiz we could prompt the system to pull together a fully functional ready to go character customized for you.
This new onboarding process would cut the complex decisions down from five to two. Just two. There would be no up front reading necessary. You take a short quiz and you’re ready to go.
Flow chart detailing the revised character creation process for Dungeons & Dragons, specifically showcasing two major decision points instead of five.
And any help you need along the way, Magus will be there for you. Oh right. Magus…
Introducing Magus, the helpful wizard companion answering questions, explaining mechanics, and reducing complexity
A vital part of removing so much context from this process would be to ensure it was still accessible on demand. Even more important was to use an interactive pattern familiar to users, so that there would be no difficult learning curve. The obvious answer was a chatbot and automatic tooltip that could be turned on and off in the settings.
Magus would ensure the game ran smoothly, and would always be there to help if you needed.
Okay time to wrap up this week’s session challenge and share how we did this week(end)
As you can see, we accomplished a lot with this challenge! We solved the Sphinx’s riddle, made friends with a wizard, and made children smile. All in a day’s work.
Wait, wait, what about the character sheet? The quiz?
Oh? Oh! Silly me. Guess we’ll have to save that story for the next session. This one has gone on too long already. If you want the rest of the story, set up some time to meet with me!