Problem Statement
A new home design game featuring the HGTV (Home & Garden Television channel) was soft launched in the UK to verify product-market fit. During this period, the Day 1 retention rate fell short of expectations. With just one month before the next user acquisition phase, I took on the challenge of addressing this issue.
Goal & Achievement
- Tutorial Completion: Achieved a 60%+ completion rate for the tutorial
- D1 Retention: Exceeded the 35% D1 retention goal
- Engagement: Increased engagement by 36%, with the number of completed challenges rising from 4.4 to 6
Methodology derived from this project to hit a specific growth target
1. List out potential relevant user behaviors
2. Verify through the data
3. Find the magic number
4. Try every means to get close to that number
Product Planning
- Post-mortem Analysis: I conducted discussions with cross-functional teams, including marketing, design, engineering, and data, to pinpoint the root cause. While I had several assumptions, there was no strong evidence to support them or any specific issues identified, just a gradual drop-off of players step by step in the funnel.
- Correlation Analysis: Instead of solely focusing on identifying the cause, I shifted my attention to achieving the goal. I initiated an analysis to uncover the relationship between D1 retention and user behaviors. While I examined several factors listed below, I discovered that players who completed at least 6 challenges were more likely to return on D1.
1. Quantitative Factors: Level progression, session length, and number of completed challenges.
2. Qualitative Factors: Types of content (e.g., IP series), interaction with monetization features.
- Competitor Analysis
Researched Redecor and Design Home for their first-time user experience, including design options, items, pricing, copywriting, etc. My key takeaway was that onboarding should help new players effortlessly progress and gain a sense of accomplishment.
Solution & Release
- Game Item Refinement
With insights from competitor games, I cherry-picked half of the decoration items, discussed the changes with the content designer, and then replaced them with more new-user-friendly options to streamline the early game process.
- New Tutorial Flow
I proposed a different tutorial flow for new players, where the same curated content would be released exclusively to them. This approach would offer several benefits:
1. Providing a better beginner experience with manageable difficulty
2. Ensuring comparability across different new user groups
3. Reducing the content production workload
4. Making it easier for me and the team to revamp and iterate on the content.
- UI Style Enhancement
After aligning with designers, I shared those two changes with the marketing and user acquisition teams. They loved the creative design ideas and suggested that we could make the style more classic and elegant to cater the preferences of the European audience.
Bits and Bobs
- Data is undoubtedly an invaluable tool in a product manager's role, assisting in user analysis and assumption verification.
- With limited data, there were other alternatives to aid decision making, such as conducting market research and competitor studies for qualitative information, engaging in pros/cons brainstorming across teams, analyzing user journeys, conducting player interviews, and experimenting to verify hypotheses.