Allow me to Introduce you to...

RAID is a social platform built for gamers! It helps people from around the world find other great people like themselves to play video games. Once they find an ideal gaming group, they will be able to schedule their game night where every member can vote on days that work for them.



"Raid was an absolute blast to make, these last 6 weeks just flew by and I am truly proud of what I accomplished. Now lets jump back 6 weeks and allow me to show you how Raid came to be."
Early days of RAID
Why make RAID?
Create a product that tackles these 2 tasks.
Task #1
Make it on something you're passionate about.
I am a huge nerd, so of course I am passionate about video games.
Task #2
Solve a problem you face in your day-to-day.
None of my friends play Video Games, so I needed something to find me other friends to game out with.

"Here is my initial sketch of what I wanted Raid to be. This was version 0.0.1 and changed a lot over the course of this project."
"Raid wasn't my only idea for this project. When I started to brainstorm for a solution that tackled those two problems I came up with two other project ideas. By discussing with my mentors and colleagues, I decided to flesh out Raid.
Interviewing and Personas
"Allow me to Introduce you to David.W and Lana. P"
David. W
Dave is the 39 something year old banker who used to love to play video games, but now that he’s a father he does not have enough time in a day to play. If he had a way to get his friends together and organize a specific time to play, he might find himself jumping back into his lost hobby.
Lana. P
Lana is the 20 something year old professional gamer-to-be. She dreams of making it big in the world of e-sports, but she doesn't have a team yet! She’s looking for a way to find a group of equally talented gamers to compete with one day.
"I made sure to interview gamers and non-gamers to get their perspective on their favourite apps in general and what elements I could add to Raid to make it a better experience for everyone. After my interviews, it made it clear who my primary users were going to be. "
Their problems Raid will solve!
​
"When I create an account for RAID, I want to feel comfortable and not overwhelmed."
"When I search for game groups, I want to find the process easy and intuitive because I want to find some awesome people to play games with."
"When I book a game night on RAID, I want to be able to see what day and what time is booked because this will severely limit confusion."
"When I am out and about, I want the app to send me push notifications to remind me of my scheduled game night."
How will Dave and Lana use RAID?

"When I created the user flow for Raid I had Dave.W on my mind. How can a user go from initial sign-up to organizing a game night as fast as possible. This is the ideologie I had when constructing the flow of RAID."
Wireframing
Low-Fi Sketches
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
---|
"Sketching out every page for RAID helped me visualize
the overall scope of the project."
Medium-Fi (Balsamiq)
![]() | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
---|
"When I started fleshing out my screens for RAID, I made sure to do some User Testing to see what other people thought of the overall flow and layout."
User Testing

Test #1
Navigation
I used two versions of Navigation for Raid early on. Using A/B testing methods I managed to narrow it down to the conventional Hamburger Menu.
Test #2
Rating
Without testing, I would have never have known about Interaction Complexity. I previously used a 5 star rating system for users, but after testing it changed to a simple Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down.


Test #3
One Hand Test
One of my tests included throwing my wireframes on my phone and making sure my classmates could hit the buttons with one hand. This helped me test overall accessibility.
Competitive Analysis
I then needed to scope out the playing field for any competition to RAID, and found a couple worthy contenders.

-
Is an app that is very similar to Raid (idea wise). It’s a group finder at it’s core, but it targets a very niche audience because it’s made for one game in specific (Destiny). I aim to make Raid waaaaaay better than Crossroads.
Crossroads

Player.me
- Is a gaming community social platform. This allows users to connect with each other by sharing blog posts, pictures, and videos.

Discord
- Is the most popular video game chat service. What Discord does very well is how fast anyone can boot up discord, create a group and add your friends. I aim to make RAID as painless as Discord.
Style & Branding
I had an Idea of what I wanted Raid to look like, but now came the time to really narrow down a Style. This is where Style Tiles come in...

Old Style Tile
"Atari Catastrophe"
This was one of my original Style Tiles for RAID. As you can see I really wanted to have a flat colour Atari style for Raid! I gladly came to senses and realized no one would use this app if it looked like this. So I needed to dial it back and stick to more standard conventions when it came to styling.
Down the Right Path
"High Tech Yellow"
When looking at other apps, I noticed a lot of the ones I liked used a two colour style system. I tried a simple black and yellow theme, but I never really fell in love with it.


The One!
"Rebel Pilot Orange"
Ever since I was a child I always had a soft spot for a grey and orange colour scheme. I still needed to see if this colour scheme looked good on an app. Once I slapped it on an art board, I knew I struck gold!




Tone & Voice
"I had an idea for RAID to have a mascot to help set the mood. I began to conceptualize what a RAID mascot would look like. I came to these two conclusions, a Wizard Knight, or a Sassy Skeleton. When A/B Testing, everyone liked Wizard Knight more. I didn't end up using any of them. I decided the personality of the app would come from language instead of a mascot."
Now it's time for me to tell you a story about why I named RAID, "Raid".

This is what we call a "Raid Group". They are
a group of players who have come together
to accomplish a gruelling task.
"I thought naming my app RAID would be perfect! The main goal of RAID is to get people to accomplish a task! A match made in heaven."

"My Logo went through a bunch of different variations, allow me to walk you through it."

- This was my first attempt at the Logo. I attached the R and D to simulate action and I wanted to dot the i with something special to make it memorable. Unfortunately It looked too much like a Skate Logo"
​
- My second iteration also looked like a skate logo, but this time Illegible.


- I continued down a dark path with different patterns, but it progressively looked worse!


​
- This was my favourite for the longest time. The pattern resembled the them of people coming together and it looked great!

- When I was playing around with app icons, I realized I didn't have any distinguishing icon. I began to brainstorm and came up with the Joystick as my icon. This logo is the first attempt at using the icon in the type... But everyone read the logo as "RAD"
and the Winner is...

"I am so happy with how my final Logo turned out! Everyone I showed it to loved it and found it legible!"

Icons






"I knew RAID's tone & voice couldn't come from language alone. This is why I wanted to hand craft my system icons. I used a Retro 8bit style to bring a little more fun to my pages."




Hi-Fi and More Testing
![]() | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
---|
"Once I narrowed down RAID’s style and tone, I slapped colour on my wireframes and evolved them into… Hi-Fi! I was more than content with my Hi-Fi’s, but I wanted to know what others thought. After testing, surprising no one they changed once again."
Although I liked it, it wasn't perfect.

"I used to have the entire profile creation on one page, but through testing I realized everyone thought it was too cluttered and confusing. So I split it up in 5 screens in a fun easy to use process."





Animations
​


"I created some really fun animations for RAID to make the user more engaged with the app. I love how they turned out, but unfortunately the great scrolling carousel animation on the right was to big to put in inVision."
Prototype & The Future
Password: raid
For my Prototype, I focused on two user flows.
​
1. Launching Raid for the First time and scheduling a Game Night.
​
&
​
2. Getting notified for a game night and submitting your availability.
Marketing Site
Password: raid
"Once I wrapped up a finished build of RAID, I needed to get the word out. So I began coding my very own marketing site to make sure everyone and anyone knows about my product."
​
The Future
What you saw was just version 1.0 of RAID, but I plan on working on RAID for a while. RAID’s future's looking bright and I would love to see it become a real working thing. I want to add some new features like for example: A Tournament section where groups can go head to head in a variety of events. This will keep users coming back even after they found their perfect game group.
Raid was a passion project of mine and I honestly loved every second of it. It was my very first big project of the many to come. Built from the ground up it was all made possible by me and the other amazing people at Bitmaker. If any of this impressed you, feel free to contact me! Thanks.