SENIOR PRODUCT DESIGN . LEO VEGAS INTERVIEW
One small component,
a lot of moving parts.
Free Spins should be the easy bit. In practice the player has to read them on top of a busy slot, on whatever provider happens to be live, sometimes in a language that is not English. Here is how I worked through it.
- 15+
- POSSIBLE STAKEHOLDERS
- AA
- BASED ON WCAG 2.1
Free Spins
Active
Available
30/30 · £0.10
The brief
"When players are in a Slot game, they often forget they have Free Spins and use their own money instead. We want a new in-game component that makes Free Spins obvious in every state."
The brief asked for the minimised and expanded views, mobile only, and to consider localisation for markets like Brazil and Finland. That is why the menu at the top lets you switch language and currency: pt-BR with R$ and fi-FI with €. It is not a detail, it changes the whole component. The field that holds the number and the label stretches and shrinks depending on the language. "5 Free Spins" becomes "5 ilmaiskierrosta". That changes the spacing, the alignment, and the whole layout. The developer cannot just fix it later with CSS. It has to be designed for it from the start.
What the player has to answer in one second
01
What is this?
The player should recognise it without thinking
02
Can I use it?
The state has to be obvious
03
How many?
The counter has to stay legible on any game
04
What are the rules?
Said in normal words, not legal copy
05
What do I do next?
A real verb. Not a label pretending to be a button. Start, claim, resume. Whatever fits where the player is right now
Explore the case study
Four ways into the work
State model
Eight states. For each one: the message, the behaviour, the CTA and the accessibility label I would expect.
Interactive prototype
Tap through Discover, Use and Recover on a phone, the way a player would actually meet it.
A and B menu test
The quiet rewards menu next to the state-aware one, so the trade-off is visible.
User flows
Four flows: discovery, gift entry, error recovery, expiring.
Halfway through I realised Free Spins is a product, not a screen.
States, accessibility, localisation, responsible gaming, the back-and-forth with engineering. All of it sits on the table from day one.