DESIGN CONCEPT | iOS
Photo Bingo Game for
Group Events
ROLE
Product & Visual Designer
TIMELINE
6 weeks
Dec 2024 - Jan 2025
TEAM
Jaqueline Guo (design)
Hong Yu Wong (design)
SKILLS
Interaction Design
Visual Design
Game Design
TOOLS
Figma
Protopie
Claude AI
INITIAL BRIEF
Our original task was to create shared experience around the camera / photo-making
We ended up pitching 30+ concepts.
SOME EARLY IDEAS WE CAME UP WITH!
NARROWING DOWN
We landed on photo bingo to focus on out of all the concepts
END-TO-END EXPERIENCE
Potential to design an end-to-end experience rather than a single feature
TRANSFORMING THE TRADITIONAL VERSION
We played the classic, in-person bingo game before & wanted to tackle the main pain points
RESEARCH
We approached traditional group bonding activities from two sides
✦ ORGANIZER
1) Creating event agendas is tricky: poorly planned activities get people lost or confused
2) How can we create community and bonding moments beyond a plain meeting?
✧ ATTENDEES
1) Need a push to open up to members they don’t know well
2) Icebreakers often feel too forced: they don't feel engaged
REVISED BRIEF
How can we turn bingo, a paper & pencil group game, into an interactive digital experience?
SOLUTION
A self-managing photo bingo game with playful mechanics
Organizers can set up a game really quickly and have all players play it with minimal guidance with shared captured moments post-game.
CORE DESIGN PRINCIPLES
APPROACHABLE
A game that is easy to create, explain & play.
CONNECTIVE
Each design detail should encourage connection.
PLAYFUL
Create delightful, unique interaction design to make an opinionated product.
GAME CREATION
Setting up the game & prompt creation in minutes. Players will enter the game through QR code or App Clip.
PRIMARY GAME MECHANIC
Fluid interface to emphasize the in-person nature of the game.
ADDITIONAL GAMIFIED TWISTS
'Re-shuffle' and 'freeze' features to maintain competition and control the length of the game.
POST-GAME MEMORIES
Assigning a personality card based on your game behavior & captioned photo album.
BEHIND ONE DESIGN DECISION WE MADE
Creating a fluid interaction between the bingo board and the camera
How big should our board be? We landed on the 4x4 board as it was a good in-between.
Having decided on board size, we approached the challenge of figuring out our primary mechanic by exploring multiple angles – visuals, interaction, motion – simultaneously.
Some of the visual explorations we made.
We wanted to create a more fluid feel in terms of interaction – having everything on one screen to decrease friction during the game. Landed on 2 main approaches: fluid camera and zoom in mechanism.
Feedback from user testing, designers, and our principles led us to choose the fluid interface because of its minimal state changes and its emphasis on the in-person nature of the game.
ONE OF OUR EARLY EXPLORATIONS:
HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF SHOWING THE PREVIOUS AND NEXT FRAME?
Before we landed on our final solution, we went through 3 phases of design exploration & iteration.
CONCLUSION
👷🏻♀️ NEXT STEP
We're working to build the concept out fully into an iOS game.
🧸 GAME DESIGN
Besides product design, this project strengthen my game design skills.
🛝 MOTION OVER HEAVY VISUALS
I learned how to lean into motion to guide the users instead of visuals.
THE FULL DESIGN PROCESS
If you want to see the nitty gritty of research & design explorations that went into crafting this experience, please reach out to me! I normally walk people through this in an interview environment or in a coffee chat.
Ani Nguyen Le, 2026.
Philadelphia / Budapest