GameZombie.tv
Launching the award-winning platform for video game shows, podcasts, and blogs
The start of a video platform for games
GameZombie.tv is a small, student-lead startup. The company focuses on giving students real-world video production opportunities to eventually get a job in the gaming or entertainment industry.
When I joined GameZombie.tv, they had a small website up and running. It contained the company’s videos, but they wanted to grow into a bigger platform that would also be a center for blogging, behind-the-scenes, and podcasts related to video games. My role was to help the company have a larger presence, while also generating more avenue from ads.
The origins of GameZombie.tv – a video player that was an initial entry point to the company’s other content
How does GameZombie.tv grow?
With such a high goal in mind, I started to research and provide ways to add in the new types of content into the mix, while also growing their video space. I began looking at video websites and gaming blogs for inspiration (and to also learn how they are successful with their content).
Success for companies like Hulu and Kotaku lie in making consuming content easy, along with offering a variety of content for people to consume
I also combined this approach with trying to understand what drew their current users to the site, while also trying to learn what barriers others in the targeted demographic had in trying to engage with the brand.
From this research, I worked with the company’s leadership to highlight the following points and to help set a direction for the team:
- The best blogs and platforms had a synergy between their videos and blog content, which created a loyal fan base
- As a small brand, those outside the company needed context to help under what a “Game Zombie” is and what it does
- To show the volume of content that is available on the platform, a small video player on the homepage wasn’t enough to engage people
Bringing all of the content together
To bring all of the content together on the platform, I first performed a content inventory of all of the content. From reviewing the content myself, I quickly learned that I needed some assistance in organizing all of the content (because even though I know a lot about gaming, it would be better to bring in actual users of the site to help me organize content).
I wrote all of the content users could consume on the site on small index cards, and I had participants sort the cards in meaningful ways.
To help users understand all of the content available, I had participants perform a card sort of all content on GameZombie.tv
Putting a new face on the platform
Even though I had learned from my research where there were opportunities to improve, I had to find ways to pull together the strategy and organization of all of the content on the site. With that, I went to work on creating multiple iterations of how the company can bring the new experience.
Evolution of two important GameZombie.tv pages – the homepage and individual show pages
Performing all of these iterations and research had one additional side effect that I had not originally anticipated – it made employees more engaged in what they were doing and actually started to participate in giving feedback during design reviews.
And after all of the hard work…
The next iteration of GameZombie.tv – a portal to videos, reviews, and original content
The new GameZombie.tv platform launched. There were still more opportunities to execute on, but the design was very received by its users. It was so well received that the design earned a Webby award for our efforts.