UI Design
Cafe world
As UI Lead on Zynga's Cafe World game, my personal goal was to clean up its 1 year old user interface. Among its many problems was icon bloat: nearly 50 ungrouped icons floating around the perimeter of the main screen. Another problem was uneven use of icons: Product managers were rewarded for good metrics, so the entire UI team had to constantly battle to keep icons consistent. Big icons get more clicks. Animating icons get more clicks. But without metrics to support fixing UI, the project was deemed unworthy by the numbers-driven team. With the help of the art director I was able to covertly replace the old UI. We saw a slow but steady rise in retention and ARPDAU and the game saw it's highest revenue ever after the new UI went live, none of which could be directly attributed to the UI. Unfortunately, it remains difficult to quantify good art.
In addition to the UI refresh I was responsible for weekly features, monthly features, and overseeing the work of 2 other UI artists. Another major project I oversaw was the redesign of the "Recipe Book".
