Esports & Gaming Platform: Matchmaking (2022-2025)

Rethinking matchmaking for a global video gaming platform, improving player experience and business outcomes.

Matchmaking sits at the heart of this global esports platform, serving thousands of Counter-Strike (CS2) and Overwatch 2 (OW2) players, but outdated design and messy flows were holding things back. This project wasn’t just about making it look better, it was about reworking the whole experience from the ground up.

Company

Esports & Gaming Platform

Project Duration

2 years and 10 months

Team Members

Andres Arigon (Sr.Product Designer), Design Director, Product Manager, Front-Ends, Back-Ends and other Stakeholders

Problem

Players were struggling to do the most basic thing: start a match. The flow was overloaded with steps, confusing to navigate, and full of drop-off points, especially for new users. What should’ve felt fast and competitive instead felt clunky and frustrating.

For the business, this friction showed up in all the wrong places: lower conversion to premium, high support costs and weak retention at the entry point.

The Challenge

Few Tools, High Complexity

Small team, limited resources
Immature design system
Lack of a clear product vision

Low Data, High Stakes

No reliable quant data
Decisions based on observation, feedback, and assumptions

Constantly Shifting Context

Team reshuffled mid-project
Rebrand running in parallel
Unexpected CS2 release that incorporated some of our features

My Role

As a Senior Product Designer I led the end-to-end redesign of this project, from research to dev handoff. Untangling complex UX problems and introducing 'User Cards', a new product concept that opened up cross-platform opportunities.

Design Evolution

How might we make matchmaking feel fairer, faster, and more engaging for thousands of competitive players?

1. Understanding the Context

Breaking down the experience to reveal player pain and product friction. Mapped full user journeys and current flows. Backed insights with community threads, behavioural data, and user feedback.

2. Exploring Together

Cross-team ideation to bring players to the front. Workshops with designers, PMs, and devs helped spark ideas. We benchmarked competitors, mapped needs, new journeys, and mental models, then prioritised features to accelerate development.

3. A Game Changing Idea

Player Cards, a simple concept with major impact. While sketching and testing, I had a breakthrough: introducing a new player identity layer familiar from popular games, reducing the learning curve. It inspired teams across the business, aligned with business goals, and opened new UX and monetisation opportunities.

4. From Concept to Live

Turning vision into a scalable, production and ready UX. Built, tested, and refined UI/UX in phases. Balanced speed and polish. Delivered a new, player-centric experience that raised engagement and inspired future roadmap ideas.

5. Impact of my work

A streamlined experience that puts players first and finally delivers long-awaited features. It removed friction from starting matches, unlocked expansion to new titles like Overwatch 2, and helped establish design as a strategic force across the product.

UX Improvements

↓ 35% drop-off rate on Matchmaking

↑ 42% increase in players completing their first match

↓ 50% fewer errors triggered in the queue flow

Player Satisfaction

+1.2 pts NPS improvement in post-release survey

“Feels way easier to use now finally makes sense.” (Discord user)

“Loving the new party flow 👌” (Reddit feedback)

Business Impact

↑ Retention: More players returning week-over-week

↑ Premium trial conversions post-redesign

↓ Support tickets related to matchmaking confusion

“The redesign wasn’t the end it was the beginning of a new chapter for both product and team”

Lessons & Reflections

Share early, iterate better

I learned the value of sharing early even unpolished ideas. Involving other designers and stakeholders sooner would’ve helped avoid late stage dependencies and allowed for better structural decisions.

Design isn’t just Figma

What works in a prototype doesn’t always survive in production. This experience sharpened my ability to balance product vision with technical constraints and delivery timelines.

Adaptability as a Muscle

I joined one of the product’s core areas after just one week on the team. I had to adapt quickly, learn fast, and focus on what mattered most. Today, I design with greater flexibility building systems that scale and evolve with change.

Voices from the Team

Here’s what some of my colleagues have said about working with me from collaboration to creativity and product thinking.

Ricardo Rodrigues

Frontend Engineer

July 26, 2025

I recommend Andres. In his time at EFG, Andres truly grew into a valuable contributor to our team, by taking the lead as a Designer. He consistently drove impactful design decisions, contributed innovative ideas, and solved complex challenges. Andres distinguishes himself through his systemic thinking, clear communication, advocate for users, and the love to challenge developers. He is a thoughtful and collaborative colleague, and his design skills would be a plus asset to any organization. Any team would be fortunate to have him.

Denis Sumin

Frontend Engineer

July 26, 2025

Andres is one of the best designers I've worked with. They have a deep understanding of user interaction flows and consistently deliver top-notch UX. After launching Andres's design for our core product, we received a lot of positive feedback from users and even saw Twitch streams where people called the new design "sick." Of course, our active user numbers grew a lot! Working with Andres is also a pleasure thanks to their excellent communication skills—they listen carefully to feedback and always put in maximum effort to achieve outstanding results.

Derek Janisch

Principal Product Manager

July 25, 2025

Having worked closely with Andres on the Matchmaking team, I can confidently say he's a great designer. Andres played a pivotal role in all of our major matchmaking releases, especially in transforming our Play Page into a more modern and intuitive experience. He was instrumental in designing revenue-driving features such as Super Match and Premium Super Match experiences, and continually helped iterate on these features to drive better outcomes. Andres is collaborative, thoughtful, and consistently brings creative ideas to the table. He also adapts effectively based on feedback, finding the right balance between innovation and practicality. Any team would benefit from his talent and approach.

More Linkedin recommendations

What’s Next

While the redesign addressed core issues and was well received, time has shown that needs evolve quickly. What felt flexible initially can become limiting as new challenges and opportunities arise.

Here are a few design considerations I’d propose for future iterations:

1) A more mature Design System

To ensure consistency and scalability across all experiences.

2) A modular architecture

Enabling faster adaptation to emerging formats and content.

3) Earlier cross-team collaboration

Embedding design deeply from the beginning of product conversations.