How Pokemon Go Inspired My Mobile Design

Love it or hate it, there’s something about Pokemon Go. The tasks are useless. There are no rewards. Yet I still love it.

I was working on my latest freelance project, and I was wondering how could we transfer this kind of behavior something that really mattered like, looking for a job? Shouldn't opening a new job offer be as fun as hatching an egg in Pokémon Go? It should be. It's a lot more meaningful!

Hatching an egg:

The egg hatches to reveal what kind of Pokemon is inside.

Receiving a job offer:

I started to notice all the different ways that Pokémon go made their navigation so easy. It wasn't like a site map at all. It was more like a series of shortcuts that opened up an overlay modal. When you were done, you went back to the main action. Instead of thinking of the site structure as a "map", I started to think of our app as a main screen with overlay screens.

Here is my original concept sketch:

Like Pokemon go, you can go back to the main screen by clicking on the "x" at the bottom of the screen.

I learn a lot from games, because game apps are so easy to play! If only everything was as fun and easy to use as a game.