Designing an E-Sports Tournament Platform

Despite a negligible skill gap, Amateur E-Sports players do not have a way to earn money from their skills

Pro players represent the top 0.35% percentile of players.

Amateur players represent the top 0.50% percentile of the players.

Yet pros earn 150x the salary of amateur players despite being in only a 0.15% higher percentile rank.

Amateurs players want to also make money, but have varying roadblocks in the way

I identified through user interviews that amateur players are frustrated that they have the skills to play, but:

• Aren't able to make it into a pro team
• Don't have anyone to play with
• Don't have a low-commitment way to make money

What if there was a platform where players can find teams and play for low stake tournaments? 💡

I began rapid whiteboard ideation to identify an information organization system that best fits the user needs

The primary needs to that ought to be met are

• Events to join with transparent indicators of entry and payout
• A social hub to meet other players
• A profile and team hub, akin to a resume for player history

And honed-in on the final information architecture through iterative wireframing

With increasing fidelity, I iterated on the tournament list item, which also served as a foundation for the design language and design system for the remainder of the platform.

The information hierarchy was starting to come together

We continued outlining requirements for dashboard interfaces, following competitive analysis and design patterns.

Requirements identified include:

• Help & Settings
• Account
• Page indicator & breadcrumbs
• Game switching
• Game mode tabs
• Notifications & messaging
• Calendar
• Tournament Status

The latter two proved crucial for ensuring the users are informed about their status on the current tournament, and future tournmanets.