Mobile UX: Bolla (v.2023)
After three months of beta-testing and six months of activity, including an all-time high bet volume during the World Cup, Bolla became the fastest-growing betting platform in Brazil and the #1 platform on TikTok. User feedback and months of metrics allowed us to decide where to take the platform in 2023 confidently.
Because 94% of our traffic was on mobile, it made sense for the next version to focus on a mobile-only user experience. This decision freed up resources and focus, and using mobile-first patterns allowed us to design more exciting concepts for our players.
For example, we envisioned Snap Bet, a way for players to bet on events in just one tap, and implemented it as the first row of bets on the home screen, above the usual sportsbook presentation. The goal was to design an experience that would push players to make faster decisions and raise the volume of bets. This feature proved a massive success: 93% of players that bet at least once on the platform used Snap Bet, and the average time to bet was ~30s vs. 180s on most platforms.
We decided to expand Snap Bet beyond the row of bets on the homepage, and turn it into a full-on game mode. When you choose to play on Snap Mode, a feed of bets is presented to you with simple questions meant to evoke a primal response: Who wins? Will Messi score a free kick? Who scores first? Tapping on a bet makes you place a bet instantly, eliminating the extra steps and making betting faster and more engaging.
Taking inspirations from Tinder and Instagram, we wanted to present a more engaging user experience and simplify it for mobile users.
The classic betslip in betting platforms gives you the option of adding multiple individual bets or combining them into a parlay; however, looking at the stats after six months of usage, very few people placed multiple bets individually: pretty much the entirety of betslips was either a single bet or a parlay.
With Snap Mode covering the single bet use case, we removed the option to place multiple single bets and pushed Parlay Mode instead, the favored choice for most players.
We also redesigned the betslip for clarity and to accommodate parlays better, so players better understand what needs to happen for their parlay to earn them a win, and we simplified the crypto coins buying process to alleviate the friction due to crypto buying.
After six months of activity, two big themes have resonated with our player base. The first one is making betting feel more like a game: to make betting more engaging and exciting, we applied traditional gaming mechanics to Bolla, like leaderboards, quests, and levels. We also redesigned the bonus system used by conventional betting platforms and turned them into power-ups similar to video games.
The second theme that resonates with Bolla's player base is making the platform more social and providing users with ways to compete and interact. In particular, affiliate users promoting the game and their bets on their social platforms wanted to bring their following into Bolla. We are now pushing to add an entire social layer to the platform, from the basics like a social feed, likes, a follow system, to customized profiles and avatars, and the ability to support a player and get players to earn a % of the winnings of the players they bring onto the platform, a feature designed to attract bettors with big followings on their social platforms.
The 2023 update of Bolla is currently in development. Please stay tuned!
