Word Genius

An educational puzzle app.

Opportunity

Word games were popular everywhere. Our users loved our traditional crossword and ken-ken puzzles. Our team labored over the New York Times crossword every day during lunch. Across the industry and App Store, word games were topping the charts.

It was time to develop our very own puzzle app from scratch. One that reflected our mission to help people learn new things.

Design

It all started with research. What do users need? Where is the opportunity? Why is the competition successful? What makes a game delightful? Profitable?

I turned all those answers into presentations, documents, and meetings that helped us understand exactly what we were building, the psychological methods behind it, the risks and pitfalls ahead of us, and the design frameworks that would carry us forward.

Not only did we want people to feel smart playing our game, but we wanted them to learn something new along the way. This was the driving ideology behind our other products and essential to the direction of the app.

My job was to shape it into something real.

After hundreds of ideas, wireframes, mockups and interactive demos, I designed an experience that fulfilled our goals. A unique word game that was divided into themed worlds. Every puzzle would focus on a person, place, thing, or concept related to that theme. As you progressed, you would learn new things along the way.

I ran brainstorming sessions with engineers, conducted online user testing, and sat down with real users to refine and iterate. Working alongside the Creative Director I helped shape the style and aesthetic of the game.

It was an exciting, energizing product development.

Payoff

We created an engaging and educational app that users loved and perfectly complimented our other products. Our app climbed the ranks and enjoyed modest success. Today it sits proudly at a 4.7 app rating with over 3 thousand reviews.