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Discord

Empowering players to discover and launch games with Lobbies, projected 95% increase in task success

B2B2C, Product Design, End-to-End, Personal Project

I designed a hypothetical feature, Lobbies, to optimize game discovery and gameplay conversion on-platform. The solution connects conversations directly to gameplay, provides developers with conversion analytics, and reinforces Discord’s evolution into a game distribution platform.

Go to:

Problem

Solution

Impact

Research

Define

Journey

Test

Overview

Problem

Players face significant friction coordinating games with friends, while Partner Studios lack distribution and engagement metrics

Discord, with over 200M monthly active users (90% of whom play games), is rapidly shifting from a communication tool to a gaming distribution hub. Partner studios are key to this transformation, but two major friction points threaten progress:


  1. Players struggle with game session coordination, often taking 10+ minutes or abandoning sessions altogether.

  2. Studios lack reliable ways to distribute games, surface discovery in-platform, and track conversions from Discord to gameplay.

Goal

Improve player retention and partner studio title engagement by:

  • Improving game discovery of partner studio titles

  • Reducing coordination time from minutes to seconds

  • Delivering analytics to studios showing conversion and engagement ROI

Solution

Lobbies turn Discord chats into instant game sessions

  • Players create a Lobby for a partner game directly inside Discord

  • Friends join with one click from a DM, server channel, or activity feed

  • Everyone launches into the same in-game lobby instantly

  • Studios receive analytics tracking the full journey from Discord to gameplay


Key benefits:

  • Frictionless coordination, no juggling invites, platforms, or manual setup

  • Built-in discovery, Lobby tiles promote partner studio games in relevant chats

  • Actionable insights, developers see precise engagement and conversion metrics

Lobbies creation flow

Lobbies traffic drives gameplay conversions, displayed in studio analytics dashboard

Lobbies in Direct Messages

Projected impact

  • Reduced coordination time from 10+ minutes to <30 seconds

  • Increased partner game discovery

  • Enhanced visibility into Discord-to-game conversion

Process

Research

Players are spending over 10 minutes, on average, to coordinate game sessions with their friends, and discovering games to play off-platform

I conducted mixed-methods research to understand Discord users and game studio developers. I interviewed and surveyed players across gaming communities and used secondary research to understand the space well.


Key findings:

  • 83% of users experience over 10 minute coordination times

  • 67% have abandoned game session due to complexity

  • Studios are looking for more distribution, discovery, and analytics

I conducted mixed-methods research to understand Discord users and game studio developers. I interviewed and surveyed players across gaming communities and used secondary research to understand the space well.


Key findings:

  • 83% of users experience over 10 minute coordination times

  • 67% have abandoned game session due to complexity

  • Studios are looking for more distribution, discovery, and analytics

Interview snippets and survey data

Define

Creating a problem and goal statement guided ideation and solution development

I conducted a problem definition workshop synthesizing player needs, studio needs, and Discord's platform evolution strategy. Then, ideated based on the defined problem and goal.

I conducted a problem definition workshop synthesizing player needs, studio needs, and Discord's platform evolution strategy. Then, ideated based on the defined problem and goal.

Brainstorming ideas and personas

Journey

Mapping a player's journey through the leading solutions, identifying the most seamless pathway from conversation to gameplay

User journeys mapped for various concepts

User testing

5 players tested the designs and helped inform iterations to improve usability

I drafted a research brief and conducted user tests with 5 players to understand how they interacted with these designs and if the solution truly resonated.


Insights included:

  • Modal-based invitation system felt disruptive. I iterated to a simpler interaction that preserved existing patterns in the Apps menu.

  • Users struggled with complex lobby cards. I simplified to clean tile designs with prominent "Join Lobby" CTAs, to clarify the interaction.

  • Overall, users expressed interest in using Lobbies regularly, validating that Lobbies was solving for a real user need.

    • One tester noted, "you have no idea how long my friends and I have been waiting for something like this"

I drafted a research brief and conducted user tests with 5 players to understand how they interacted with these designs and if the solution truly resonated. A few learnings were:

  • Users felt natively-integrated Lobbies, in DMs and server chats, felt more intuitive than off-platform coordination tools or methods

  • Users preferred a simpler tile design, with a 'Join Lobby' CTA to clarify the action

  • Testing highlight "you have no idea how long my friends and I have been waiting for something like this"

I drafted a research brief and conducted user tests with 5 players to understand how they interacted with these designs and if the solution truly resonated. A few learnings were:

  • Users felt natively-integrated Lobbies, in DMs and server chats, felt more intuitive than off-platform coordination tools or methods

  • Users preferred a simpler tile design, with a 'Join Lobby' CTA to clarify the action

  • Testing highlight "you have no idea how long my friends and I have been waiting for something like this"

I drafted a research brief and conducted user tests with 5 players to understand how they interacted with these designs and if the solution truly resonated. A few learnings were:

  • Users felt natively-integrated Lobbies, in DMs and server chats, felt more intuitive than off-platform coordination tools or methods

  • Users preferred a simpler tile design, with a 'Join Lobby' CTA to clarify the action

  • Testing highlight "you have no idea how long my friends and I have been waiting for something like this"

I drafted a research brief and conducted user tests with 5 players to understand how they interacted with these designs and if the solution truly resonated. A few learnings were:

  • Users felt natively-integrated Lobbies, in DMs and server chats, felt more intuitive than off-platform coordination tools or methods

  • Users preferred a simpler tile design, with a 'Join Lobby' CTA to clarify the action

  • Testing highlight "you have no idea how long my friends and I have been waiting for something like this"

User testing brief and script

Early iterations exploring varying interaction and visual treatments

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