MultiVs — a single home for fragmented gaming knowledge.

With our research synthesized, two distinct user behaviors emerged: players seeking quick reference to data they'd already learned (frame data, item builds, matchup info), and players seeking onboarding into systems they didn't yet understand. These became Hector and Arlie.

Hector emerged directly from interview patterns. KSU's Marietta campus — formerly Southern Polytechnic — has a significant engineering and CS student population that overlapped strongly with competitive gaming engagement. Local FGC participants, League players, and one internationally-competing player surfaced consistent themes: reliance on stat trackers, preference for quick-reference formats over long-form content, and frustration that in-game information was insufficient for serious learning.

Arlie was a more deliberate construction. Goal-Directed Design pairs personas to surface tensions, and Hector alone would have over-indexed the design toward power users. Looking back, her construction relied more on reasonable assumption than direct interview synthesis — with more time, I'd have weighted research toward casual players to validate or revise her needs profile.

The end product needed to serve both without compromising either: depth without overwhelm, accessibility without condescension.

Initial wireframes (v1) established the core architecture and screen flows. After preliminary review and early feedback, I iterated to v2 — tightening flow logic, regrouping related screens, and clarifying navigation paths. The information hierarchy and iconography established here carried forward into high-fidelity.

The high-fidelity prototype was built in Figma. I designed the Game Library, Character pages, Community Guides, and Settings sections — populated with realistic content to give testers an authentic feel rather than lorem ipsum scaffolding. Visual language emphasized dark mode for extended use, with iconography drawing from established gaming UI conventions.

Final usability testing surfaced a positive response to the overall layout and information hierarchy, with consistent friction around iconography in the navigation rail. Testers responded well to the efficient layout and the project's premise as a centralized resource. With more iteration time, the next priority would have been an icon labeling system or hover-state treatment to reduce learning curve.

Goal-Directed Design's emphasis on personas and user flows kept the work grounded — every design decision traced back to either Hector's need for depth or Arlie's need for accessibility. If I were to approach this again, I'd allocate more time for usability testing in the high-fidelity phase. The iconography confusion that surfaced late could have been caught earlier with more iteration cycles, particularly around the navigation rail.