Reducing tutorial friction in fantasy mini-games
Project
Responsible Data Science game
Focus
Educational UX, onboarding, systems thinking
What I did
Used testing insights to redesign onboarding, improving the flow of the tutorial experience
Context
2025 • UX/UI Designer
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Testing insight
The tutorial was built as a practice round, but read as a demo. During testing, players waited for something to happen, unaware they were supposed to interact.
Research
How do the best mini-games teach a mechanic in under 10 seconds?
Competitive analysis across 8 titles revealed that the most effective tutorials share these patterns:
Just-in-time information
One mechanic at a time, introduced when it's needed, not front-loaded.
Narration creates order
Static text has no hierarchy. A narrator's voice moves and tells players where to look.
Players need a prompt
Motion, glow, or a direct cue. Without one, a blank area is just confusion.
Hypothesis
If the tutorial uses a narrated sequence that illuminates each element as it's introduced, players will understand the goal and controls before acting, reducing confusion without reducing information.
Design Solution
From static modal to narrated sequence
Sequential narration paired with highlighted assets creates a temporal cue; it moves, it speaks, it draws attention. This builds rhythm and maps words to objects in real time, making it less like a rulebook and more like in-world storytelling.
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Impact