
Exploring discord's Eco System
This is a UX/UI Design student project that was given out at Utah Valley University. My role was to research the Discord application and find out if there were any additional features that could provide value to users.
My Application Analysis Process

1
Study Userbase

2
Assess current features

3
Additional Features

4
Takeaways
Tools
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iPhone
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Android
My Role
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UX research
Timeline
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Overall: 1 week
Users
The 3 primary users of this app can be summed up in the following:
Gamers : Individuals that want to talk or chat while they are gaming.
Digital Community Seekers: Individuals wanting to connect over the internet and feel a sense of community even when they are not gaming.
Teams/professionals: Individuals that want to collaborate in teams, and create a professional community.
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Here are personas of 2 of those users:


Assessment of Current Features
The problem Discord is solving
In the early days of video gaming, players were excited to discuss their gaming experiences with friends. As technology progressed, games transitioned to online platforms, enabling friends to communicate while playing together. This revolutionized the gaming experience, turning it into a social activity.
Initially, if you wanted to talk to friends during gaming, you had limited options: either play the same game or use platforms like Skype for voice calls, resembling traditional phone calls. However, adding others to the call was a lot of work, and the lack of file-sharing and chat features forced gamers to use multiple applications and it soon became a hot mess. With the expanding gaming industry, the demand for a streamlined community hub became evident.
Discord emerged as a solution, providing gamers with a platform for text chat, voice calls, information sharing, and community participation. Gamers now have a place where they can talk to their friends, regardless of what game they’re playing and their location. And thanks to their chat options, digital community seekers have a place where they can interact with others.


Join & exit calls
Allowing users to easily join and exit calls with multiple users simultaneously proved to be a game changer. This functionality served as an incentive for gamers to join the platform and because there are so many users, Discord has become a central hub for gamers to collaborate. For those in search of community, the platform offers a way to create and foster connections even if they’re not gaming. The community continues to expand daily as Discord provides a fundamental outlet for interaction and communication.
Additional Features
Discord communities can have multiple threads and often times users are only interested in specific threads within the community. A great feature would be to allow users to favorite specific threads from communities. The favorited threads could be used to generate a personalized feed. This would allow the user to stay up to date with multiple communities in a single location eliminating the need to open up each community and search for specific threads.
This is a great example of a community with many threads. Currently, there is no way to select only a few to follow. the concept of favoriting specific threads within Discord communities presents a compelling opportunity to enhance user experience by addressing the need for personalized content consumption. By allowing users to select and prioritize threads of interest, Discord can streamline the browsing experience and provide a more tailored approach to community engagement. This feature would empower users to curate their feed according to their preferences and interests and ultimately, spend more time on Discord.
Threads

My Takeaways
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02
03
Researching the key audience is prime to identifying opportunities for feature enhancement.
Understanding user behavior, preferences, and pain points enables UX designers to make informed decisions about which features to prioritize and implement.
Research into user interaction patterns and community dynamics revealed the importance of managing multiple threads efficiently.