Mobile gambling, if you’ve watched any live commercial sporting event, is big business. Mobile gambling is at the forefront, keep my Top 10 points in your UX Playbook when designing for this sector
Hard Skills:
Design Process
Research & Theory
Visual Design
Soft Skills:
Strategic Thinking
Problem-Solving
Critical Thinking
Recently, I have been both at the coal-face and negotiating with stakeholders to define what makes a great gambling offer. Here is my Top 10 tips on improving your mobile gambling offer.
1.0 Make it beautiful
Implement design rules is also a top tip. For example, instituting a one-size fits all font size policy across your offer can not only eliminate lengthy design discussion each time a new element is introduced but also guarantee legibility on the small screen.
2.0 Minimalist approach
Empowering users with the financial tools they deserve
- Mastering Design Theory and Lean Agile
- Solve big problems, fast.
- How delight and speed are rewriting our UX playbooks
The iOS interface has worked hard to keep it’s interface as minimal as possible. And now Material Design seems to have eclipsed it. You should too focus on the end-result when building applications. Then the complex user interface design becomes much less of a worry. Keep it brief – Use short phrases with simple words. People are likely to skip sentences if they are too long.
3.0 Advertise your offer
Use promotional pages as SEO gateways that effectively push users towards seasonal, calendar or event promotions is a great way of both measuring and channelling new and existing customers to your site.
4.0 Cater for your audience
The marketeers mantra ‘Know your audience’ or in UX speak, your personas is even more valid in the gambling world. Modern media may paint the picture that it is Gen Z are tapping through your gambling offer while supping away at their frappucino. In reality, there are three types:
The ‘Arthur Daley’ type
i-core smartphones, flat design or the latest ‘start-up’ buy out is of no interest to this demographic. So when designing that Each Way selector, remember the majority of your audience may still be using a Nokia feature phone. Forget PayPal, these customers still use rolled-up wads of twenties.
The modern gambler
Suited and switched on, this group embrace modern tech but still follow the odds – so concentrate on settling the greatest thing about each mobile page you design front of stall. Remember, its all about concentrating on simple tasks, not offering a 100 other distractions.
The VIP
Some would say this most important demographic, this group unusually keep gambling companies afloat, so treat them well. Of course, to attract the best VIPs you need to tick the other audience demographics, and provide a competitive level of functionality. But once you have attracted this group, don’t lose them.
5.0 Personalisation
By Domain
Regulations are regulations, and if you don’t have a license then you simply cannot gamble in those territiories. As a UXer, you have to think how this would effect the end user. Will stripping out the core content of your offer reduce its impact too much? Or, have you built a flexible framework to accommodate all but the strictest regulations.
By Individual
The holy grail if not just online sports sites but in many other industries is to provide a tailored experience for your users. After login, a user is ervered up their favourite sports, their top markets and other popular everts, based on data, that they may participate in.
Unfortunately this relies on active participation by the the user, if they haven’t set up their favourites or they have made one or two obscure bets on markets and selection that were NOT there favourites then the personalised experience will miss the mark and potential deter a new spend.
By sport
The world is as vast as it is different. The popularity of Cricket in India is probably only eclipsed by the passion for Horse Racing in Ireland. Football is your standard, your ‘cash-cow’ if you like. Then there is Latin America, Horse Racing goes and Martial Arts comes in. So, offer an approach that allows
territory personalisation. An approach where territory managers, governments or the global Marketing Heads can switch on and off elements is now a must have.
6.0 Coming Up, Then default to football
One might think that somewhere in the world there is always a sporting event happening. This is almost true for Football, but for sports like Speedway and Volleyball this is simply not the case. So, whilst providing navigation to these ‘less-than-popular’ sports where there is no inplay or live event, give them an opportunity to review Coming Up events, and failing that default to football.
7.0 Reduce barrier to entry
The classic for this Top Tip, is Registration
Regulatory bodies, your location on the planet and your age (off course) all contribute to protecting the end user what can be the harmful effects of gambling. These are all handled within Registration, some hidden, some not. So, try and simplify the process, provide a step-by-step mechanism that guides your new ‘date’ through.
8.0 The freeium Model
Statistics show that only 20% of users opt for the ‘Play for free’ choice. Any Casino Manger will scoff at this marginal group as they provide no revenue and use your service, for free. But, to use a brick n’ mortar retail expression, it get customers through the door. Once there, conversion rates sore. You and your team are going to build the infrastructure anyway, should you have done your job well then these floating voters are more likely to buy if they are tried. Make sense?
9.0 Cash in, cash out
Payment providers come and go, regulations also change. Therefore this UI proved to be a real challenge. Users wanted to see their favourite providers top of the stack, but new entrants also want precedence. One solution was to provide a preference selector for the user, enabling it easy and convenient to flip to a swipe or list experience. Just another example of allowing the user to personalise and fall in love with your product..
10.0 Make it fun
Animated ‘Add to betlip’ gestures, rapid loading times and great images are only some of the ways of improving the whole betting experience. If you can mimic the ‘day at the races’ feeling, especially if your race days produces winners should always be front of mind. Registration and receipts for financial transaction are not the sexiest piece of UX in the world – but try and think how they could be?
Pique’d your interest?
This is but part of a selection of design information russellwebbdesign generated for the creative community out there. Please contact me further to discuss how your brand can benefit from the new channel: info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk
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15+ years UX experience | Finance | Gambling | Healthcare | Figma Ninja | Design System Guru
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