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Homerun MLB:
Catch and Collect

Duration: August 2021-September 2021

Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe XD, Miro, Figma, Spark AR, Amazon Alexa

Industry: Sport Entertainment

Team Members & Roles: Geneva Royer: Graphic Designer, UX Designer, UX Researcher, Video editor

                                      Adriene Montalvo: Graphic Designer, UX Designer, UX Researcher

                                      Gitel Saks: Graphic Designer, UX Designer, UX Researcher

                                      Neha Chhabra: UX Designer, UX Researcher, Sound Engineer

                                      Selin Özay: Graphic Designer, UX Designer, UX Researcher, Sound Engineer, Video editor

Overview

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a North American professional baseball organization founded in 1903 after a merger between the U.S. professional baseball leagues, the National League (NL) and the American League (AL). It formed the technology department, MLB Advanced Media, in 2020. The MLB Advanced Media focuses on future video game and virtual and augmented reality development. Their goal is to provide fans excitement of baseball through cross platform and immersive virtual and and augmented experience and captivating baseball stories captured by their products.

Problem

MLB Advanced Media sought a UX experience to increase the fans’ interest in baseball by providing individualized, immersive experiences across diverse digital platforms. Developing video games and augmented and virtual reality apps is one method they used to achieve this goal.

The two main problems that MLB Advanced Media wanted to resolve are:

  1. Fans need an engaging MLB experience that extends past a live game or inside a stadium. Older enthusiasts missed the sportsmanship, energy, interaction, and community that the traditional stadium previously provided. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic limits the stadium experience for long-term baseball supporters.  

  2. Although digital collecting is a sought-after $575 million in North America as of 2020, it lacks the tactile experiences that physical memorabilia has.  

Solution

Our solution was creating our product, MLB: Catch and Collect. With our MLB: Catch and Collect mobile application, users can bond with their community and have fun both on and off the stadium by collecting virtual cards. This application solves the low engagement with the MLB community while making long games more fun and interactive. The MLB Baseball Card Collection app allows users to find and scan QR codes from stadiums, sponsor websites, and other forms of advertisements associated with MLB. The codes permit users to play mini-games to obtain cards. Players gain more bonuses and rankings as they capture more cards. The cards resemble the traditional physical cards that the older generation collected and traded, appealing to more senior fans' interests. After playing with the cards, the users will enjoy the AR experience of watching their favorite baseball players' miraculous events and taking pictures with the athletes of their choice.

Result

The finished prototype in Figma is provided at this link. We created the 2-min trailer below to demonstrate the proposed mobile experience for MLB: Catch and Collect. Narrowing our targeted users' age range, using the company's brand colors, and basing our visual designs on the enterprise's previous products made our overall experience feel more familiar to our users. As a result, we were able to successfully demonstrate our product to our users and our client's stakeholders

Enjoy Collecting and Trading Digital Baseball Cards with Friends! Players can raise their ranking and become ultimate collectors for awards and inclusive MLB experience!

MLB: Catch and Collect: 2-min trailer. 

MLB: Catch and Collect: AR Experience. 

Process

Part 1: Conceptualizing the Product

To conceptualize our product, we created the project's timeline, journey map, user flow, premortem, completive analysis, and SWOT analysis in Miro. They are assessible at https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l3N-p8A=/.

Creating the Project Timeline

We outlined the required documentations for the 6-week duration. The deliverables are categorized based on urgency, importance, status of completion, and areas of activity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to Timeline: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l3N-p8A=/.

Creating a Journey Map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to Journey Map: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l3N-p8A=/.

We created a customer journey map in Miro to show Michael Batsky, the persona, responding to the QR code displayed on the jumbotron. Batsky is a tech-savvy, early adopter baseball fan; he sees the code on the digital screen and scans it. Later, he purchases a collector card and downloads the MLB: Catch and Collect app. He searched the application to find more cards. For cards he cannot physically obtain, Batsky trades his possessions for them. Finally, he invites his friends to join him on the app after enjoying the experience. The line represents the persona's emotions. Positive feelings increase the line height, while adverse reactions lower the streak. Batsky expects to learn about baseball history and engage with other baseball fans whether he is in the stadium or not.

The improvement opportunities were selling and trading basketball cards, maintaining/increasing fans, and commercializing associating companies. MLB needs help from their customer support, web, and marketing team to ensure the success of the QR codes and cards.

The pain points are:

  • Wishing to engage online with the baseball communities and collect cards

​       Solution: Cards with QR codes.

  • Not knowing what the QR codes are.

       Solution: Provide a brief description of the QR codes and their usage. 

  • Needing to explore the app to find cards.

       Solution: Have a tab for information and actions relating to the cards and add a search bar to find cards quicker.

  • Not physically getting the card.

       Solution: Online selling and trading of cards.

Creating User Flow

We created a rough draft of the user flow. We rejected the initial blueprint because the user story was overcomplicated, making the Capstone Project demanding to design. After signing into the MLB app, the user can view his profile, scan QR, and get a baseball ticket. While getting the pass, the user has the option of sharing extra tickets and reserving parking spots. Since getting tickets is unrelated and deviates from the narrative of using QR codes, we removed it from the user flow. Later, we simplified the design into the proposed version.

 

The proposed user flow focuses on the user’s ability to view his profile and find and scan his QR codes to view upcoming challenges, events, info provided in the encryption, and the local map. The user can also view his card collection in his profile after obtaining baseball cards. The path that users may have frictions or errors (purple) is the path where the users need to scan and read the QR codes. If the QR code is damaged or not stored in the app’s system, the portion of the application will not work.

Link to User Flow: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l3N-p8A=/.

Creating a Premortem

We created a premortem for the QR scanner portion for the Capstone Project. The possible problems for each deliverable in our project timeline are:

  • UI is hard to navigate

  • QR Code does not scan

  • Users are unaware that a product like this exists

  • Stores/Bars run out of physical memorabilia

  • Kids/adults don’t reach ever reach for the QR code

  • Users may not be interested in QR codes and getting rewards

  • How technically possible is it to create what we want?

  • Any existing promotions that need consideration.

  • Are we able to accommodate future changes to this product?

  • Someone drops out

  • This project needs what we don’t have

  • Running short on time

  • Unable to express our ideas and design to the client.

 

Our three biggest potential problems were the QR codes not working, the users may not know or be interested in QR codes and getting rewards, and being unable to express our ideas and designs to the client. The solutions to these problems are having technical/engineering teams solve the scanning errors, making QR code announcements through promotions/marking, and doing repetitive user testing to avoid pain points.

Premortem

Link to Premortem: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l3N-p8A=/.

Conducting a Competitive Analysis

We conducted two distinct competitive analysis based the on the functionality and visual elements of our proposed product. For the usability analysis, we compared the user demographic, collector's items, pay walls, and forecast of MLB's Topps, MLB Candy Digital, Pokémon Go, and NFT's OpenSea. We weighed up the similarities and differences in user demographic, social media partners, telecommunication, tech partners, cryptocurrencies, partnership, and AR/VR news for MLB. NFL, and NHL.

Link to Competitive Analysis: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l3N-p8A=/.

Conducting a SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis

Link to SWOT Analysis: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l3N-p8A=/.

We created a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis to determine the overall potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that we would face while developing our product. We concluded that the our main weakness and threats were cost, timing, and some users avoiding in-person interactions because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We could minimize these issues by focusing on completing the MVP within budget and deadlines and making the product have virtual and in-person experiences.

Part 2: Research 

Creating a Research Plan

We created our project's research plan to:

  • Determine the main demographics of our end users.

  • Choose to the best research approaches to discover our users' interests and pain points.

  • Ensure we complete our work within the anticipated deadline.

  • Design our product to assessible to users with disability.

Creating an Affinity Map

The affinity map below demonstrates the alignment between the industry partner’s goals and the end user’s goals,  aiding us in formulating a solution that supports both parties' objectives.

Link to Affinity Map: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l1rPm9E=/

Developing a Project Plan

We strategized our solution for the users and client by creating a product plan, which is assessable here.

Prototyping a Solution

We prototyped a feature of our solution in Figma. As illustrated in the prototyped feature, the user will log in/sign in to our mobile experience, scan a QR code from an official MLB ad, obtain an unique collectable card, browse through the user's card library, read the new card's information, and log out on the product.

First Prototype of the Our Product in Figma. Figma Link: https://www.figma.com/file/9XkX73sirHHQzkOuMlI3Tv/21.1-Prototyping-a-solution?node-id=0%3A1.

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Project Timeline Part 1

Project Timeline Part 2

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Journey Map

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Rough Draft of User Flow

Proposed User Flow

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Part 3: Usability

 

Conducting a Heuristic Analysis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to Heuristic Analysis: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l18UxX0=/

Using the Heuristic Analysis, we determined the main usability problems in the first prototype were lack of visual exits, insufficient user controls and freedoms, no familiar characteristics with other MLB mobile apps, hard to find elements in the experience, and no hints guides for the users. Our solutions were to add more visible "Exits", provide more guides, use helpful symbols to convey to users instructions for the experience, model MLB's previous apps for our visual layouts, and create "Reply" buttons to allow users to watch important moments in baseball multiple times.

 

Clarifying Affordances

 

Task-Key Input-Solutions Table

 

Link to Task-Key Input-Solutions Table: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l05-RxQ=/.


For the Task-Key Input-Solutions Table, we analyzed the affordances of our MLB QR scanning application by creating a 3-column table in Miro. The three labels for the columns are “Task”, “Key Input”, and “Solutions”. As shown in the table The user has six main tasks to complete in the app.  The six duties are signing into his account, collecting baseball cards, viewing his profile, trading cards, viewing his current collection, and exiting the app. Exiting the app does not have a key input because the exit is a function within the app. Additionally, the user can manually leave the app with his mobile device. The product design can improve by providing the user the option of closing the software on each screen. Therefore, the user does not have to go through the pain point of returning to the first screen to exit the MLB app.

Interviewing Users


We conducted a 12-question survey to help us determine how we can cater our baseball app to users of various interests in the sport, preferences in attending the stadiums, and experiences in collecting baseball cards. We listed the survey’s introduction, interview questions, and interviewees’ responses below.
 

Introduction:
This survey is to help us research the baseball app we're working on. You do not need to have any prior experience to fill this survey. We will use this information only for internal research purposes and no personal information will be used or shared.
Please send your feedback as soon as possible.


Thank you,
Geneva Royer, Adriene Montalvo, Neha Chhabra, and Selin Özay


General Questions:

1. Do you consider yourself a baseball fan?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Somewhat

 

2. How many times have you attended a baseball game in person?
a) Few times in 5 years
b) Every year 
c) Never 

d) All my high school baseball leagues

e) Only once

 

3. What is your seating preference at the stadium?
a) Front area 
b) Top view seats
c) Middle and Sides
d) Almost always  pick booth seats
e) Never been to a stadium

 

4. How often do you engage in baseball activities outside the stadium?
a) Baseball practice 
b) Watching baseball game at sports bar
c) Watching game at home

d) Not a lot into baseball
d) Only when I take kids out for practice

 

5. How many baseball cards have you collected ?
a) Most cards ever printed
b) Few  card  
c) Premium cards only

d) Never collected cards

 

 

 

 

6. What would you be interested in knowing about the players?
a) To know where players were born ?
b) What is their favorite holiday country/ city ?
c) What is their favorite etc. ?
( *future chance for branding/ tie ups with restaurants, travel agencies)
d) Not that Interested
e) Very interested but want to know other things about players

 

 

7. Do you collect baseball cards from stadiums?
a)  YES
b)  NO    

 

 

 

 

 

8. How often do you play baseball? Choose one or more below.
a) Only at high school  /  college baseball leagues 
b) When I practice with my kids
c) Never 
d) Sometimes
e) Every single day

 

 

9. Does collecting free digital original baseball player cards excite you?

Choose one or more below.
a) Would you download them and collect them at a sporting goods store?
b) Would you download them and collect them at restaurants?
c) Would you download them and collect them at the Gaming Arcade?
d) At amusement parks
e) At batting cage
f) At Sports bar

g) no interest

h) Maybe, when I was a kid I was...

i) Don't have an idea

10. What do you enjoy most about baseball, besides watching live games?
a) in-game highlights
b) expert analysis

c) Taking kids to watch the game

d) Food at stadium

e) I mostly watch game at home
f) Collecting Memorabilia (signed caps, signed bats, signed balls, old game

tickets, player posters).
g) Not much

11. Do you follow baseball on social media? choose one more below.
a) Instagram
b) Facebook
c) TikTok
d) Snapchat
e) Twitter
f) No I don't

12. (Optional question) Tell us about your favorite team or favorite baseball player?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary of the collected data


Most users are watching games from home. There are more users who have collected player cards than those who have not. They are interested in knowing more about players. Most clients never played baseball, while some play the game with their kids. Additionally, the users prefer to watch the games at sports bars when they are not watching them live at the stadiums or comfortably at home. Facebook is the preferred social media platform to follow baseball, according to the survey.


A description of the changes we will incorporate in our prototype as a result of the answers we receive during our interview.


We may add new AR interactions to our app’s baseball cards. We will do more research on this and see what could be added or removed to make app engagement stronger.


Future Interview Questions:
1.Was the app easy to use?
2.What do you think is missing from this app?
3. What surprised you about this experience?
4. What do you think about the layout?


Intro for zoom interview during User testing (for future):
Hi, thank you for giving me this opportunity to interview you. You do not need to have any prior experience. We will use this information only for internal research purposes and personal information will not be used or shared.
We’ll start when you are ready :)!

Using Personas

Link to Primary and Secondary Personas: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l05n9ic=/

We catered our product to the interests of younger and newer fans to baseball and MBA because we realized older fans are already loyal to MLB and the overall experience we were designing appeal more to the youth than the older generation. The personas above demonstrate that our targeted users are within the age range of early teens to early 30s.

The product serves the needs and goals of our users quite well. People are able to engage in collecting cards and socializing by adding friends to trade with and compare collections with. One aspect we needed to consider is how to keep the engagement of younger users, who may not want to trade with adults and have that be the only aspect of the app. Including more AR assets might be useful to drive engagement and sharing of the app for the younger users. Another aspect to consider is what type of cards we will have, this will greatly affect how our users perceive the value of our product (e.g. what is considered a rare card, what becomes an NFT card, how do you become the highest-ranking card collector). 

Testing Our Product Internally

1. A list of the problems we found in our script and the changes we made to address them.


The problem in script was that there was no explanation of what a QR code is and how to start the process of scanning one. We fixed these problems by describing QR codes and including a “first-time users demo” for the app when first signing up.


2. A list of all the functions in our prototype and our evaluation of whether each function worked or not and how we fixed the problems we found with our prototype.


Functions in our prototype are signing in/up, viewing profile, collecting cards, scanning QR codes. All functions worked, although edits need to be made for ease. We fixed problems by making the readability better, through changing the layout and editing
buttons.

 

Updating Our User Flow

 

Previous User flow

Link to the Previous User Flow: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l3N-p8A=/?moveToWidget=3074457362368726100&cot=14

Current User Flow

Link to Current User Flow: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l1aNsys=/\

1. A short-written description of how the changes we made will improve our user experience.


The changes we made will improve the user experience by making it easier to navigate and also providing them with a sense of ease that their permissions are being asked (like when using the camera). We also included more features to drive engagement and added several more pages of what was missing in the previous user flow/ product ideation. We also added another flow where the user does not need to navigate through the app to start scanning, but can instead just open the camera, scan, and be directed to the app, this speeds up the process and gives options to users which way they prefer.


2. A short-written description of what user testing feedback informed these changes.


The user testing that informed these changes were our observation of our app and performing competitive analysis to see the user behavior and how we navigate an app.  Multiple internal testing provided us crucial information regarding our product design and its resulting user experience.

Iterating Our Design


Our takeaways are that there were some technical things we did not consider, such as privacy settings and getting permissions. We had positive takeaways that our product is usable, with just a few tweaks needed to be made, to drive engagement and to make things more organic and intuitive.

Assumptions that we had were that buttons were needed for most of our interactions. However, swiping or dragging elements is also very acceptable and might even be preferred as it imitates real life more.

Changes we made include making the UX more readable, and more in line with the MLB branding. We also made changes for security (such as camera access) and to make our product more engaging by adding in elements for our profiles, such as including the ranking of the user throughout the product so the user can easily see their progress and feel more inspired to continue collecting.

Card Library: Before and After Modification

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made a change based on our card library. Instead of having it be cards you swipe to see, it is agrid layout. We did this so it would be easier to see all cards at once and find them more easily.

 

QR Scanning: Before and After Modification
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


We made changes to our QR scanning. Instead of the camera view taking up the entire screen, we decided to also include our branded and UX/UI elements. This way it still looks cohesive to the rest of our product. Additionally, we added “help” features for people, to make it all easier if there is an issue.

Icons: Before and After Modification

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are button changes along with how we present our information. We changed it from a single “profile” icon to a menu, which also has personalized writing next to it with the user's name and ranking. This will drive incentive. We also added additional information to our cards, instead of just a card image, we included writing above that describes what the card is and how many points the user will receive for it. Having the information right away will also drive-up collecting incentives. Additionally, it allows for easier voice command and listening for some users.

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Part 4: Prototyping

Target Users and Market


Our main demographic of users are 13 to 34 years-old. According to Statista.com, 51% of our clients are not fans of the sport ("MLB Interest in The U.S. 2021, By Age | Statista"). Although our product caters to all ethnicity and genders, our users are primarily white males (Allison and Knoester, "MLB Fans In The U.S. By Ethnicity 2020 | Statista"). We plan to primarily market our project to the United States. Our first-time users will gradually become frequent users. Our goal for our product is for our target users to use our product to collect cards, learn more about baseball, and become more engaged within the growing baseball community.

Prototyping Plan

Testing Goals

Metrics for success
 

The users are achieving their goals of collecting basic, metallics, and limited-edition baseball cards. They can achieve their secondary objective to reach optimum Collector Ranks. The ranks from highest to lowest with their benefits are:
 

○ All Star (200+)
i. 3x multiplier
ii. 4 strikes you’re out
iii. Premium Stadium Perk

 

○ Major League (Ranks 101 - 200)
i. 2x multiplier
ii. Favorite Player Content
iii. Basic Stadium Perks

 

○ Minor League (Ranks 51 - 100)
i. 1x multiplier
ii. Special MLB News feed
iii. Monthly sponsor perk (i.e. October x2 points on Coca-Cola products)
 

○ Rookie (Ranks 1 - 50)
i. No Perks

 

The business reached their goals of sponsoring their athletes, selling stadiums’ tickets and merchandise, and keeping their 70-year partnership with Topps, a baseball card manufacturer before their contract finalizes in 2025 (Diaz). There is no exit choice in the Trivia and Ball Catching modes. It is our goal to reduce friction in that area. The prototype is solving that problem by allowing the users to access the main menu throughout the app’s screens.


Tools for testing Trivia Mode


The tool we will need to conduct Trivia testing is Amazon Alexa. Amazon Alexa allows us to conduct 3-question quizzes and graph the results of the users. Amazon Alexa enables users to take the quizzes by command and by touch. We can use Figma or Marvel POP to test the Ball Catching feature.


A description of the type of data we collected on our users’ path:


We were interested in the users’ visual, auditory, and physical interactions with our product. We designed the features of the product to be like design schemes of MLA Logos and MLB Ballpark app. We expected the users to receive audio feedback when they answered the trivia questions correctly and incorrectly. Additionally, we wanted our product to be handicap-friendly by allowing users to respond to questions orally. For our able-bodied clients, we want to see if the physical interactions run smoothly.

Users were getting the correct feedback during the experience when they receive positive and negative sound effects after completing the short trivia and ball catching game. 
We measured vestibular and proprioceptive feedback because the product has
AR experiences when the users are finding QR codes on commercials and in local stadiums, scanning their QR codes, and when they are catching virtual baseballs to collect digital baseball cards.

 

How we recorded our product's features that worked and did not meet our expectations


We recorded features that worked and did not meet expectations by conducting surveys after major updates in the design. The results of the surveys will serve as guides to later iterations of the product design and development.

Risk Register

Testing Round 1

For Testing Round 1, we asked our users to watch a a brief demo that demonstrate our product’s baseball catching game to collect virtual baseball cards after scanning the QR codes posted on commercials. Afterward, they will complete the Google Form survey for our record.


The demo is shown below:


The questions we asked in the survey are:
1. Can you describe what was happening in this video?
2. Have you ever given access to mobile camera while using an app?
3. Is there anything you like or dislike about this video?
4. Anything that confused you about this video?
5. Have you ever used fun filters on mobile while clicking pictures ?
6. Have you ever clicked pictures with filters on mobile phone at outdoor events?
7. Have you ever used Augmented Reality (AR)?

Results:

Based on the survey, most users had an idea of what our product was about but did not fully understand what the product is doing. They had experience with augmented reality, camera filter, and giving permissions to other mobile apps to use the camera. 

Iteration Round 1

The changes we made to the product are adding:

  • Adding a GPS system to find the location of the QR codes

  • Adding Profile Page

  • Adding QR Code Page

  • Adding a Home Page

As shown in Table 1, we edited the Card Collection scene for our product. The original design only allowed the user to redirect to the Home and Profile page after view the card collection. The card gallery was not in order. The user would have to scroll through the card slot to find the desired card.


The new Card Collection page allow the user to see an enlarged image of the selected card. Additionally, the user can select the recently collected cards located under the large photo. The user also has the option of navigating to the Home, QR Code, Profile, and Settings page.

Our changes improved the product by the paint points of searching through the app to navigate for certain scenes, trying to find the recently added cards, and attempting to stretch a fixed image of a card to read its information.

Testing Round 2

 

We asked the users to test our Figma prototype for our virtual baseball card collecting mobile application and complete a Google Form survey about their experience for the second round of user testing.

 

A video of our prototype of the application created in Figma, along with its link, provided below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Figma link to the prototype: https://www.figma.com/proto/Ms5iQGKiNEvvnmdAymcymk/Mock-ups-Wireframes?node-
id=84%3A43&scaling=scale-down&page-id=0%3A1&starting-point-node-id=84%3A43&show-proto-sidebar=1


We asked the following questions in our survey:
1. Can you describe what was happening in this app?
2. Have you ever given access to mobile camera while using an app?
3. Was this app easy to use?
4. Anything that confused you about this app?
5. What was the most confusing part/ screen/ word?
6. Could you read everything on app clearly?
7. What do you prefer, collecting baseball cards physically or virtually?
8. Did you see any player batting a ball?
9. Did you answer any questions on this app?
10. How likely are you to recommend this app to a friend?

Results: 

 

 

 

The users were more likely to recommend this app to their peers because the app is easy to navigate through and read. Unfortunately, the users were confused about the baseball catching feature of the app. This could be resolved by the adding the Baseball Card Collection Page after the animated ball catching screen. Additionally, if the users received instructions before trying the demo, there will be less confusions using the app.

Iteration Round 2

 The changes we will make to the product are:

  • Adding a Setting page

  • Adding a Sound Button

  • Adding titles on most screens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown in Table 1, we edited the Ball Catching Game page for our product. The original design only had a fake Pitcher throwing a ball in an unrealistic direction. The hand signal is helpful but is hard to see in the background. The camera button is unnecessary for this interaction. 


The new Ball Catching Game page allow the users to see an animated version of their favorite player pitching a ball to toward them. Additionally, there are indications to show if the users successfully and unsuccessfully caught the ball.

Our changes improved the product by making the ball catching feature easier to understand and see. The user can easier catch the ball when the background and button are not distracting the users. The Settings page is needed to cater the app to the users’ preferences. The screen titles help the users understand where they are in the app.

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Part 5: Ideation and Storytelling

Storyboard and storytelling

The storyboard we found to be the most inspiring is shown in Figure 1. The storyboard shows a user scanning a QR code from a stadium’s advertisement, playing an AR game, winning a virtual baseball card, and showing the prize to his friends, encouraging them to do the same.

 

 

 

Figure 1: Storyboard of Discovering the QR Code

You and your friends decide to go to a baseball game. While you are there, you notice QR codes scattered around the stadium. The game is a bit slow, and you and your buddies are getting a bit bored in between pitches, plus your team is losing so where’s the fun in that? You decide to walk around a bit and maybe grab some drinks. Then, you see the QR codes again and scan one. You’re brought to an app that allows you collect digital baseball cards! You decide to play the cool AR game to catch a card and succeed. Now you have a rare edition of your favorite player in your collection. Maybe this day wasn’t such a waste after all. You go back to your friends and show them your card. They decide to scan the QR code too and play for cards. Some of them receive a different card from you and try to get you to swap with them since everyone loves your card.


The character, the user, uses the product to collect baseball cards, increase the ranking in the app, and receive rewards. The product provides a community with baseball fans that collect and can trade cards and communicate with each other.


The XR in our product brings users together and they can sit together and trade cards. They can sit together in the living room when there is a pause in the game - and scan the QR codes and play for the card, along with traded cards that they got. The relationship between our characters and the product is that they enjoy using our product to be more engaged in the MLB community and can interact through the game of collecting cards and showcasing their ranks as baseball fans.

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Step 6: Conclusion

We concluded the MLB: Catch and Collect by producing a 2-min trailer of the mobile experience. The video demonstrates how the users can create their individual accounts, complete mini games, and obtained rare virtual baseball cards from their community. We learned that we increased success rate of our MLB: Catch and Collect by constraining our target users' age ranges and product's core features.

MLB: Catch and Collect: 2-min trailer. 

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