Case Study File No. 02
Dealer's Choice
An interactive dealt hand of cards, with varying card views and numeric totals.
Project Timeline
Tools
4 Weeks, Spring 2024
Figma
Prototype Video
Initial Development
01 / Definition
How far can you simplify a design until it's no longer recognizable? Playing cards are a very well known and recognizable design, with an easily understood language. The cards themselves are fairly set in stone, all that changes is how a player uses them.
02 / Project Direction & Research
This project was a way to experiment with the program Figma, utilizing both design and prototyping features. The most significant aspect of this project was to understand the optimization of user efficiency while still maintaining key controls and artistic value. Playing cards have such a distinct design, I wanted to see how the card designs can be changed stylistically while still being recognizable.
iterations
The Process
03 / Process Work
The card designs themselves took a bit of trial and error to create a harmonious style. Once I nailed down what I had in mind to simplify the original card designs, it was a lot of building shapes on top of shapes to portray parts of the details that I was going for.
While for the prototype itself I would only really need five cards, I was having such a good time designing the cards that I decided I wanted to push it further. Once the base for a few of the cards were made, it turned out relatively easy and fun to come up with the whole deck.
The prototyping took the longest amount of time since it was one of my first experiences with prototyping in Figma. Once I got into the swing of things, I did find that prototyping started to feel like second nature and the logic behind it is very intuitive. The longest part about it was making sure that every viewport was connected to every other possible viewport. Making sure, for example, the full hand could be viewed from any singular card view and that any changes would be reflected.
Final Designs
Afterword
04 / Reflection
It was challenging at times to land on a prototype design that didn’t seem overly crowded and would be cohesive with the design of the cards. I had a hard time creating a sense of emphasis on a single card besides just having it as the only thing really visible in the viewport. Ultimately I decided to lean into that, leading the user visually to the rest of the cards by seeing a small portion of the card above or below.
Working in Figma was a great learning opportunity. The way everything connects in Figma and the prototyping is really interesting to work with, it was both frustrating and rewarding to finally figure out what wasn’t working correctly or why something wasn’t doing what I thought it would.
© Emily Menna 2026