Dolby Digital Soundboard

Goal

Our goal was to conduct research into the behavior changes of video gamers during the COVID-19 pandemic to inform the design of a new audio solution that addresses their needs and frustrations.

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Final Product

Our team created a digital soundboard that allows users to quickly control external and internal sound preferences in one widget on the Windows Gamebar. There is also a community feature allowing users to share their presets with others and user others’ sound presets based on the audio experience users desire.

Through survey results and interviews, we found that gamers who spend more time gaming often use PCs which run Windows. Windows Gamebar is an existing overlay that allows users to quickly access plugins during their gaming experience.

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Users are prompted to adjust their sound settings while they wait for the game to load.

By pressing the correct hotkeys (a combination of keys that when pressed performs a task quickly), users activate Dolby Sound Presets Widget in Windows Game Bar.

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Users can search keywords or presets that relate to their game or experience they desire.

‍In-game sound is displayed at the top right.

• When clicking on the drop down arrow, users can expand the menu and manipulate individual sounds within the game.
• Users can also lock the sound category to be uneditable. Sound categories that are locked are gray-overlayed.‍
• Users can change the ordering of the sound category by clicking and dragging the dots icon on the left.

External sound, or other applications are detected by the computer and populated automatically.

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Navigating to the heart icon brings up a user’s favorite presets.

Favorites are organized by Most Used and Recommended.

• Subcategories Recent, Playtime, Liked, and Your Sets help users decide which preset will fit their needs.
• Users can Preview the preset and see and hear sounds change in real-time
• Users can Apply the preset to their game

Users can Favorite individual sounds within a sound category.

• Starring is to put that slider (Master Volume) at the top of the list, pinning it as important

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Clicking the people icon brings the user to the Community tab.

Community is organized by Popular presets and presets a gamer’s Friends are currently using.

When clicking a specific preset, the number of likes it has is visible.

• Users are able to Preview and Apply the sound settings if they desire.

Previewing a preset enables users to visually compare how their sounds would change.

• Users can also hear how the settings change game sound

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Navigating to the Friends section in Community brings up the page on the right.

Users are able to see what settings their friends are currently using for the corresponding game.

• They can choose to apply those settings to their own game as well.

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Clicking the + icon brings up the Create menu.

Here, users are able to see a library of presets they’ve made

• They can Edit an already-existing preset, and manipulate sound using sliders on the right.
• Once they are happy with their edits, they can hit Save.
• Share enables users to publish their preset to the Community tab. An animation will show their preset moving to the Community tab.

If users want to Create a new preset, they can click the + icon at the bottom. This will bring up a new field to save presets (screen on right).

• Users can name their preset and description, select the sound levels.‍
• Users can also publish the preset to their personal library.

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Process

Impact of COVID-19

• Major increase in gaming play time
• Higher gaming livestream viewership
• Growing need for social gaming communities

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Literature Review

The goal of the literature review was to explore the landscape of gaming and identify opportunities to narrow down our problem space. The topics were:

• Types of gamers
• Headphone use
• Sound software
• Video game market
• COVID-19 effects

Our team used an affinity diagram to organize our research and generate takeaways.

Literature Review Insights

• Gamer types are not on a linear spectrum from casual to competitive, but are characterized by their behaviors
• Surround sound is especially crucial for competitive games
• Online gaming activity is on the rise following the pandemic
• Including a social aspect is important for many gamers

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Survey

After realizing we could categorize gamers through behaviors, we wanted to identify those behaviors through a survey as it would help us solidify gamer identity segments with data. Our team created a survey and received 239 responses.

The survey was designed to build upon the general gaming behavior that we had previously found in our literature review, targeting behaviors

• Solo and multiplayer gaming
• Play time before and during quarantine
• Emotions surrounding gaming
• Game genres
• Console preferences

We developed a method where we would propose a hypotheses on a specific gamer behavior, which we would confirm or deny through the survey data. With this method we were able to discover solid behavior traits like how MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena Video Games) players preferred to play competitively or that PC players are the most likely to own a gaming headset. We then used these insights to create concrete gamer types.

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Survey Insights

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Interviews

Our main goal for our interviews was to gain insight on specific behaviors related to gaming and sound experiences. We were able to interview 18 survey respondents who had data relating to one of 6 specific behavior categories based on both qualitative and quantitative data from our survey.

The 6 categories included:

• Increased play time, specifically with people who had dramatic increases in their gaming time
• People who described playing with friends as a main contributor to their enjoyment while gaming
• Users who tried new games during quarantine
• Respondents who started using new consoles
• People who have invested in headphones to support their gaming experience
• Users with previous experience using sound enhancing software such as Dolby Atmos or Razer Sound

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Interview Insights

Our team created an affinity diagram and decided to focus on the point that balancing sound is a main pain point when playing with others because we found it was the biggest opportunity for growth.

• Gaming is an emotional experience
• Gamers are heavily influenced by their friends' behaviors
• Multiplayer PC gaming has the most opportunity for innovation
• Balancing sound is a main pain point when playing with others

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Problem Framing

PC gamers playing online games with their friends need a way to balance the core audio inputs so that they can customize the gaming experience to their sound preferences.

• We picked PC gamers as these made up a majority of our interview & survey respondents who reported behavior changes
• We focused on balancing audio inputs because this was the biggest frustration among the gamers we talked to
• Our research made it clear to us that each gamer has their own unique sound level preferences while gaming, depending on factors like type of video game or number of players

After defining our problem scope and creating a problem statement, we moved into creating a user personas.

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Personas

Our team created two personas to assist with decision making during ideation to create a targeted design. Gamers with different levels of commitment have different goals and frustrations. Many gamers share common traits, such as gaming as a social activity, or being able to self-identify as competitive or social.

The Social Gamer persona values the social aspect of gaming, plays to have fun with friends, and sometimes is unable to hear their teammates due to unbalanced sound levels.

This persona values the more competitive side of gaming, becomes immersed within the gaming environment, and requires perfectly balanced sound for a competitive edge.

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Ideation Methodology

Our team identified 4 As as a framework to understand how our concepts from ideation conveyed persona goals, frustrations, and gaming contexts. We narrowed down on the concepts based on research findings, uniqueness, feasibility, and fun.

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Core Feature Ideation

Our team conducted a few rounds of sketching, keeping in mind the 4 A's, insights from research, and personas. Through this, our team created a list of specific features to ideate upon for our final design.

• Audio sliders - It was more common to see sound sliders as opposed to dials
• Presets - Certain games sound better with certain features boosted or muted and presets was a good way to make the process quick and seamless
• Internal and external sound settings - Users want to be able to adjust both in-game (ex. background music, sound effects) and external sound (ex. Discord, Spotify) in one place
• Digital sound mixer - This would be a convenient digital platform to access all aspects of the audio experience in one place
• Physical sound mixer - PC builders may also be interested in building a physical board to enhance their audio mixing experience

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Initial Concept Design

Our team ideated on physical sound mixers, but we ultimately decided that prioritizing a digital experience would have a lower learning curve and more seamless experience.

Concept Testing

The goal of testing was to understand the emotions, pain points, learnability, and overall user experience with our sound preset widget for Windows Game Bar. We had 7 participants, and conducted 2 rounds of testing and 2 rounds of iteration.

The testing gave us an idea of whether or not this product is feasible and could be integral to a gamer’s experience. It also gave us insight to how a user might use this product, which is good for future ideation and prototyping.

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Concept Testing Takeaways

• Explore: Function of the lock icon was confusing for some users; there was no signifier to indicate drag-and-drop functionality
• Favorites: Users wanted more flexibility in the way they can organize their favorite presets; some users wanted to see how many people had favorited a specific preset
• Community: The amount of text and number of buttons were overwhelming to a few users
• Create: Button text was too small; general confusion about how to create a preset

Our team took this feedback and implemented it in our final design.

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Reflection

I enjoyed working on this project, even with the challenges that we faced while transitioning into a COVID-safe work mode.