UX Research · Arena Club · 2025

Home & Slab Pack Page Redesign

How structured user interviews with high-value trading card collectors challenged design assumptions — and shaped a completely rethought discovery experience.

17 User Interviews
33% Outreach Response Rate
$1.9M Highest 6-Mo. Revenue / User
3 Design Variations Tested
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Collectors don't chase Grails.
They browse with intention.

01

The original design assumed rare cards drive purchases. Users told us the full lineup, fresh drops, and upfront pricing matter far more than spotlighting the rarest pulls.

02

High-value buyers are sport-specific and utility-driven — not spectacle-driven. Most collect 1–2 sports and rely on filters and fast scanning to find what's relevant to them.

03

Grail-centric visuals created excitement and skepticism in equal measure. Most users saw Grails as unrealistic — the imagery generated aspiration, then detachment.

04

Every design change that shipped — from the Buy Again section to removing the Hit Feed — traces directly to a user quote collected and synthesized during this study.

Understanding the Space

What is a Slab Pack?

This project lives in the world of collectible trading cards. Here's the 60-second primer you need to understand the research.

01
🃏

Trading Cards

Collectors buy physical trading cards — sports, Pokémon, and more — that range in value from a few dollars to millions. Rare, high-value cards are known in the community as "Grails."

02
🔒

Graded / "Slabbed" Cards

Cards sent to professional grading companies are assessed for condition and sealed in a tamper-proof plastic case — a "slab." Graded cards are authenticated and carry significantly higher market value.

03
📦

Slab Packs® (Arena Club)

Arena Club lets you buy a digital "pack" containing real, already-graded cards. You open it online, see what you pulled, and your card is stored in their secure vault — no shipping required.

The Challenge

What we were solving — and why it mattered

Arena Club's Home Page and Slab Pack browsing pages were built around a narrow assumption: that collectors are primarily motivated by chasing the rarest, most expensive cards.

This led to a layout that spotlighted only top-tier Grail cards — leaving mid-tier buyers, sport-specific collectors, and repeat purchasers underserved by the experience.

With a full redesign underway, the product and design team needed to understand what actually drives different types of buyers before committing to a new direction.

Research Question

"How do buyer motivations shape the way collectors engage with Slab Packs — and what does the ideal browsing experience look like for each type?"

My Role — Collaborating Researcher

  • Co-owned participant recruitment strategy and segmentation
  • Contributed to interview script and prototype selection
  • Conducted and co-facilitated user interviews
  • Co-led affinity mapping and synthesis
  • Co-presented findings to design and product stakeholders
Research Approach

A structured process to reach the right people

We designed the study to surface honest reactions — not just surface-level opinions.

01

Segment Users

Divided buyers into spend tiers (top 1%, top 5%, everyone else) and platform (web vs. mobile). Also isolated "Legendary Pack" buyers as a separate high-value segment.

02

Recruit Participants

Randomly sampled within each tier. Sent 60 outreach emails with a $250 Slab Pack discount as incentive.

33% response rate — 20 confirmed
03

Build Interview Materials

Created a semi-structured script covering current behavior, reactions to the existing design, and probing questions across 3 prototypes. Sessions were recorded with consent; a dedicated note-taker joined each call.

04

Run Sessions

Facilitated 30-minute moderated interviews. Let users guide the direction — minimizing directed questions to surface honest, unprompted reactions.

05

Synthesize

Extracted quotes onto post-its coded by sentiment (red/yellow/green), spend tier, and design variation. Ran affinity mapping to cluster patterns across all 17 interviews.

What We Tested

Three variations, three collector mindsets

Each prototype was designed to probe a distinct buyer motivation. Click any variation to watch the prototype video.

V1 Current Experience

Persona: Baseline

The existing design, tested as a benchmark. Helped surface pain points users had normalized — things they disliked but had stopped noticing over time.

We wanted to learn "How does the current flow feel when compared directly to more experimental options?"
V2 Mystery Pack

Persona: Mystery Shoppers

Minimized visual information to lean into uncertainty. Only a portion of cards were revealed on interaction — emphasizing the thrill of the unknown pull.

We wanted to learn "Does unpredictability enhance enjoyment and drive repeat purchases?"
V3 Grail Chaser

Persona: Grail Chasers

Featured each pack's rarest card prominently alongside the thumbnail — building anticipation and spotlighting potential rewards upfront.

We wanted to learn "Does highlighting rare pulls increase excitement and spending intent?"
V1 Current Experience

Persona: Baseline

The existing mobile design tested as a benchmark — surfacing what users had come to accept as friction without realising it.

We wanted to learn "How does the current mobile flow compare when set against new options?"
V2 Mystery Pack

Persona: Mystery Shoppers

Mobile version leaned into the surprise mechanic — reduced card visibility on scroll, emphasising the pack reveal moment on mobile's natural swipe behaviour.

We wanted to learn "Does the mystery mechanic translate to mobile and feel rewarding?"
V3 Grail Chaser

Persona: Grail Chasers

Grail cards displayed prominently at the top of each pack tile on mobile — maximising the visual impact of the rarest pulls within a compact screen.

We wanted to learn "Does leading with the Grail on mobile drive more taps and purchase intent?"
Key Findings

What 17 interviews taught us

Several findings directly challenged assumptions baked into the original design.

👁️

Show the full lineup

Users wanted to see all available packs — not just top-tier Grails. Many collect specific sports and need to scan the full range to find what's relevant to them.

↳ Contradicted original design assumption

✨

Fresh content drives excitement

Special Series packs and new card drops generated the highest engagement. Novelty was a stronger motivator than featuring the most expensive option.

↳ Informed hero section redesign

⚙️

Utility features matter

Filters, Buy Again, and grid/list toggles were consistently praised. Most collectors buy 1–2 sports — filtering directly reduced friction in their browsing flow.

↳ Validated across all spend tiers

💰

Price visibility is essential

Users are price-sensitive and frustrated when prices aren't surfaced upfront. Seeing prices on the home page is a core part of the decision-making process, not secondary information.

↳ Quick win — low effort, high impact

🃏

Card image > Pack image

Collectors want to see the actual card they might pull, not just the pack artwork. Displaying the card prominently increased perceived value and emotional pull significantly.

↳ Informed thumbnail redesign

🎯

Grails are aspirational, not practical

While grail images were visually exciting, most users recognized them as out of reach. Grail-centric thumbnails created excitement alongside skepticism — and a feeling of detachment.

↳ Shifted design direction away from V3

From Findings to Design

Research-driven decisions

Every design change traces back to a specific user insight. No guesswork.

Research Finding Design Change Platform
Users revisit similar packs Added "Buy Again" section surfacing recently purchased packs Web + Mobile
Collectors care more about cards than pack art Display card image in front of pack thumbnail Web + Mobile
Users are price-sensitive Show pack prices directly on Home Page Web + Mobile
Users want visual differentiation between tiers Add background colors to thumbnails per pack tier Web + Mobile
Fresh / new content drives excitement Feature Special Series as its own hero section Web + Mobile
Grails are aspirational, not realistic for most users Remove grail-centric thumbnails; restore hover states Web
Collectors typically buy 1–2 sports Incorporate sport-based filtering on category page Web + Mobile
Split between card-viewers and efficiency-seekers Add grid / list view toggle on mobile category page Mobile
Hit Feed was low-value to most users Remove surfaced Hit Feed from mobile home page Mobile
Design Outcomes

Shipped & live

Every annotated change below maps to a finding from this study. All changes are live.

View live site

Web — Home Page

After
Web home page after redesign Special Series hero section Price on tile BG color per pack tier Card image in front Buy Again section

The new web home surfaces prices upfront, foregrounds the card over the pack, uses tier-specific background colors, and introduces Special Series as a hero — all directly from user feedback.

Changes shipped
  • →Buy Again section added
  • →Card image placed in front of pack
  • →Pack prices shown on home page
  • →Background colors per tier
  • →Special Series featured as hero

Research insight driving this

"Collectors want to see the card, not the pack. And if I can't see the price, I'm already closing the tab."

— Top 5% spender, web user

Web — Category Page

After
Web category page after redesign Special Series own hero section Sport filter tabs Grid / list toggle Grail-free pack thumbnails

The category page now opens with a Special Series hero, sport-based filter tabs let collectors jump to their sport, and pack thumbnails no longer lead with unrealistic Grail imagery.

Changes shipped
  • →Special Series featured as hero
  • →Sport-based filter tabs added
  • →Grail-centric thumbnails removed
  • →Hover states restored

Research insight driving this

"I only buy baseball. Why do I have to scroll through everything else to find it?"

— Top 1% spender, web user

Mobile — Home Page

Before
Mobile home page before redesign
After
Mobile home page after redesign Buy Again at top Price visible Card image front BG color per tier

Mobile home now leads with a Buy Again row, shows card images in front of pack art, displays prices inline, and uses tier-specific background colors throughout.

Mobile — Category Page

Before
Mobile category page before redesign
After
Mobile category page after redesign Special Series own section Sport filter tabs Full lineup Grid / list toggle

Mobile category now opens with Special Series, exposes sport filters at the top, shows the full pack lineup by tier, and lets users toggle between grid and list views.

Impact & Outcomes

What happened as a result

🚀

Design Shipped

The final design — combining the mystery pack experience with utility enhancements — was approved and shipped to production across web and mobile.

🧪

A/B Test Queued

The redesign was set up against the current experience in an A/B experiment, enabling the team to measure real conversion and engagement impact.

📋

Findings Shared

Research was synthesized into a stakeholder presentation, giving product and design a shared, evidence-backed rationale for every decision made.

Reflection

Manual outreach was time-consuming and hard to scale at 60 emails. In future studies, I'd build automated outreach and reminder flows upfront to reduce ops overhead and expand sample size. I'd also design a clearer rating rubric for evaluating each design variation consistently across participants — making synthesis faster and findings more defensible to stakeholders.