BACKGROUND
The Cash Tournament Entry feature of the Price of Glory mobile game was an integral part of what sets this game apart from other mobile games. As such, creating an experience that has the least amount of friction, while also making sure all of the legal checks were taken care of was imperative.
ROLE
UX Designer
TIMELINE
4 months
SKILLS
Design, Research, Wire-framing, Prototyping
TOOLS
Figma
THE CHALLENGE
The most challenging aspect of the Cash Tournament Entry flow was finding a way to ensure that the player was able to seamlessly enter cash-based tournaments while also making sure that we were complying with all of the legal requirements and business needs.
THE SOLUTION
The goal was to create a flow that feels the least burdensome for the user and makes sense for the company with the costs of doing these checks with our third party partners.
In the end, we went with an approach that best balanced player, legal, and business needs.
STEP 1
RESEARCH
In creating our gating flows for the game, it was imperative to ensure that all the legal requirements for what we were doing were accounted for. In order to create the best flow, I had to balance minimizing friction points with complying with legal requirements and cost-effectiveness.
LEGAL REQUIREMENTS
Because our app had matches in which players could compete for real cash, we had to have several checks in place to comply with legal requirements for checking players’ age, location, and personal identification.
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STEP 2
DESIGN
Before designing the Cash Tournament Entry experience, I evaluated the financial costs and legal requirements of each compliance gate (age verification, location checks, and KYC) to understand where they could be placed without unnecessary expense or regulatory risk.
From there, I designed the flow to introduce these gates at moments that aligned with user intent, minimizing friction while preserving compliance and business viability.
USER FLOW
Outlining the flow of joining a cash entry tournament knowing the requirements for the necessary gates helped me to better determine the ideal placement of each check, account for different states and use cases, and consider how to best communicate to the user the actions required by them.
WIREFRAMING
With so many gates, it was critical to account for every edge case, from permission denial to verification failure. Keeping players informed with clear resolutions to any issues was imperative.
01
Our Age Gate needed to clearly explain why access to cash-based modes was restricted in different edge cases.
This included regional age requirements and cases where players were otherwise eligible (Nebraska and Alabama).
02
I wanted to communicate to the user why their location was needed before they were prompted by native permissions.
It was especially important to tailor for specific device type because of Android's "Precise" and "Approximate" distinctions.
03
For the location check failure messages, we had to take into account many different use cases.
For permission error messages, we wanted to include specific instructions for how the user could resolve the problem.
04
Know Your Customer checks often require personal information.
I wanted our messaging to be clear about why this information was being collected and assure them that the platform we were using was credible.
ITERATION
One issue I noticed after implementing the Age Gate was that players were sometimes tapping through the prompt quickly and logging their date of birth as January 1, 2025 (the default selection). This led to those users failing the Age Gate and having to contact customer support to address the issue.
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To address this concern, I modified the date picker to default to a blank selection that would not let the user move on until they selected a date. This significantly improved the number of Age Gate fails we were seeing.
STEP 3
RESULTS
This final design established a clear, trust-building cash tournament entry flow by thoughtfully guiding users through permissions, failure states, and compliance requirements.
STEP 4
REFLECTION
Given more time to iterate further, there are a few additional improvements I would love to make to better the Cash Tournament Entry experience.
01
Many error messages prioritize “Contact Support” as the primary action, which may unintentionally imply a hard stop.
Reducing visual weight on this action, removing the secondary dismiss button in favor of a more prominent close icon, and exploring a text-link treatment for support could improve clarity and better reflect user intent.
