After winning the 2021 International Gaming Award for Lottery Product of the Year for its lottery mobile app, IGT forged ahead with further enhancements to its convenience and wagering apps. Now, the next generation IGT convenience app is set to debut with a U.S. lottery in Q4 this year, increasing IGT’s total number of global mobile application deployments to 12 — the most in the industry.
Optimizing how players interact with the feature-rich apps and introducing a fresh approach to the design and navigation were some of the key focus areas. As always, IGT adheres to Apple and Google app guidelines to ensure compliance and to continue its strong relationships with the platform providers.
Data-First, Player-Centric
IGT adopts a data-first strategy when designing products, and uses data and tools like Google Analytics to understand player behavior. By aggregating the various interactions across multiple player sessions utilizing various data sources and player research feedback, IGT’s mobile development team redefined player journeys and flows and addressed any unexpected player behaviors. With these insights, IGT redesigned the home screen to prominently feature the next available jackpot draw game, jackpot amount, and a countdown for the next draw followed by the latest winning numbers, a scrolling game carousel, and the retailer finder.
Lottery retail and online players test-drove the app and provided invaluable feedback. Overall, users reported that they found the convenience app easy to navigate, user friendly, and simple to use with its single-touch interface, allowing them to easily pick numbers and scan tickets. In fact, the more frequent users look forward to using the updated app and reported that they like the features available on the app, including winning numbers, winners, Hot & Cold numbers that present the most and least frequently drawn numbers for a lottery on a specified number of draws, and more.
“Based on analysis and player feedback of how features and functionality are used, players are now able to create digital barcodes from their favorite numbers faster,” said Hardeep Bhachu, IGT Director, Portal and Mobile App. “We moved the digital playslip to the top of the screen so it can be scanned more easily at retail. We also added customizable onboarding screens to educate players about the app, a retailer list to improve accessibility, and additional information about scratch and draw games that most interest players like game ID and a calendar feature to find winning numbers.”
For jurisdictions that allow wagering, IGT enhanced the gifting and group play social features that may introduce lottery products to new players. Players can send their friends and family monetary gifts via email or text to be used for lottery products online or at retail. All they need is a lottery account to redeem their gift. Group play is a digitized pool where friends are invited to join, register, and buy wagers as part of the pool, or a player can find a pool open to the public. All participating group members are automatically paid out their portion of the prizes, making it much easier to track, collect wagers, and payout prizes. “Allowing players to reach content they are looking for as fast as possible and to easily navigate throughout the app were important outcomes from our recent usability studies,” said Bhachu. “Our latest app now allows lotteries to configure the positioning of content and the new bottom navigation bar based on player needs.”
Looks Count
Along with optimized player journeys, the app features a new aesthetic. Following best design practices and ADA compliance guidelines, IGT’s user-interface experts focused on creating a neutral interface to provide a modern and clean design while providing users with a content-focused experience. By incorporating interactive animations and boosting the use of in-app gestures, the team ensured that players’ attention is drawn to what is important — the content.
“Lotteries are also benefiting from our redesign,” said Bhachu. “Now, lotteries can make rapid content updates like text, images, and banners themselves to keep the player experience fresh and engaging. Marketing teams can make changes via a content management system and then publish immediately without the need for technology support.”
IGT’s next generation iOS and Android app is available now and debuts with an IGT U.S. lottery customer in Q4. Stop by booth #543 at the World Lottery Summit for a demonstration of the convenience and wagering apps or contact your Account Manager for more information.