Client: Turn 10 Studios (Microsoft)
Established in 2001, Turn 10 Studios produced Forza Motorsport, Microsoft’s entry into the competitive market of video game racing. The brand is known for producing high quality, realistic racing games for Xbox 360 and Xbox One. This high standard is expected on any auxiliary products associated with Forza because of the brand's affiliation with Microsoft.
Project Brief
The move to Xbox One gave Turn 10 the unique opportunity to create a franchise hub Xbox app (a destination for gamers to interact with their favourite titles when outside of “game mode”) to launch alongside their next title, Forza Horizon 2.
One of the key drivers of the project (and specifically its release as an Xbox One app) was the promotion of Forza Rewards to existing players within context of the game. Although this feature was somewhat unknown to the majority of Forza gamers, those who know about it, loved it and the numbers proved it; gamers who utilized the Forza Rewards feature played the game for a longer period of time over those who did not (sorry, exact numbers are under NDA).
After several releases of Forza Hub on Xbox One, the next target was to utilized the Windows Universal App platform to move the Hub from Xbox One to desktop and tablet on Windows 10.
UX Toolkit
Stakeholder Workshops
User Interviews
User Mental Model
User Experience Strategy
Story Mapping
Paper Prototyping
Keynote Prototyping
Interaction Design (Gesture, Voice, Controller, Touch)
User Interface Design (Xbox One & Win10)
Usability Testing
Project Objectives
- Increase time with the Forza franchise (either in-game or within the Hub).
- Promote Forza Rewards to existing Forza gamers.
- Increase awareness and help migrate gamers from one game to the next (including across sub-franchises).
- Increase awareness of Forza editorial content, events, and photos.
- Be an exemplary first party vendor on the platform: redefining design patterns, design for controller, gesture, and voice, and be the exemplar Xbox One and Windows 10 application for others to follow.
The Team
3 UX Designers
1 Art Director
2 Creative Directors
8 Frontend Developers
2 Backend Developers
2 Quality Assurance
Fun Fact
In Forza Horizon 2 presents Fast & Furious, rapper Ludacris voices one of the in-game characters. Early on in the game he directs the player to collect Forza Rewards by saying “Hey man, you gotta go check out the Hub!” I knew I’d finally made it as a designer :-)
Results
The majority of the results for the Xbox One app are under NDA, but I can share that the app’s attachment rate was over 50%. Also, daily average time-on-franchise per user has increased by over 10 minutes per day.
The Windows 10 app was released to rave reviews by media and gamers alike! In the US Windows 10 App Store, Forza Hub has an average user rating of 4.9/5 stars. In addition to the great reception we received upon release, we've also seen many other Microsoft teams adopt our design patterns as platform standards, which confirms that the team's internal goal was achieved!
“…the new Forza Hub app is probably one of the most polished app experiences on Windows 10 that you can find. The user interface is wonderfully minimalistic and image-centric…”
— WinBeta, the Windows 10 news and review site's recent review of Forza Hub
“Sean is one of the most customer-focused professionals I’ve had the pleasure of working with in over 25 years of software development. His commitment to a high quality user experience is always apparent throughout development, and is abundantly obvious in the final products he designs.
He also brings a fun and collaborative approach to brainstorming and prioritization, which helps the team and client truly understand what is most important to the success of a project. His ability to rapidly prototype multiple well-thought out solutions to problems, in addition to understanding and explaining technical requirements and dependencies, makes for a smooth, enjoyable experience for everyone working with him on a project, and for everyone who uses final product.”
For the best experience, login with your gamer profile associated with your Forza account.