Localisation as a growth strategy
Research, localisation strategy, and a full redesign that took NPS from 4.3 to 8.6 in five months.
👩🏻💻 Role
UX/UI Designer & Research
🤝 CLIENT
Booyah - Garena by Sea Group
👥 Team
Booyah Brasil Team
01 Context
Booyah is Garena's streaming platform — home to Free Fire highlights, live streams, and a community of millions. But while Free Fire was breaking records in Brazil, Booyah was communicating the same way with every market on earth. The Singapore team knew the numbers were off. As the only UX/UI designer on the Western side, I was brought in to find out why — and fix it. I led research, benchmarking, redesign, and a full UI Kit delivery to finally give Latin American gamers a platform that felt like it was built for them.
original app
02 Stage of the project
Products that perform well in Asia often struggle in Western markets, except in a few cases where localization is done properly.
To understand this gap, I followed a structured process:
📝 01. Competitive benchmarking
Focusing on community, communication, platforms, and social media used in the West.
📊 02. Monetization analysis
How competitors make money in Western markets.
👁️ 03. Heuristic evaluation
Booyah’s app and platform compared with competitors.
🔍 04. User research
Defining the profile of our users.
📱 05. Redesign and testing
Iterating with user feedback.
🎨 06. UI Kit delivery
Establishing a visual system for implementation.
a small part of the research board
03 Key insights ✨
When comparing Booyah with other successful platforms, we discovered crucial differences:
🌈 They offer diverse content, not focused on just one game.
🇧🇷 Their communication adapts to the target culture: tone, visuals, and messaging shift depending on the audience.
👩🏻💻 They focus on humanizing the brand: engagement comes from authentic interaction, not only rewards or numbers.
🎬 Their platforms act as showcases for streamers and trending games.
🎮 Gamification and rewards are aligned with each audience’s motivation.
a small part of the bench board
Understanding Brazil’s Numbers 👨🏽💻
The Singapore team often asked: “Why are the Brazilian numbers so low?”Brazil has more than 200 million inhabitants, and in recent years over 75–85% of the population has had access to the internet, which means more than 160 million people online. Among them, around 70 million play Free Fire daily in Brazil, making the country one of the game’s strongest markets worldwide.
If the main game reaches this massive and highly connected audience because it runs well on simple devices, the platform that supports this ecosystem needs to be just as lightweight and accessible. Otherwise, Booyah creates a barrier where Free Fire removes one.
Our users need clear communication, an accessible platform, and a feeling of inclusion. That’s what our redesign aimed to deliver.
some studies
📱 Mobile‑first and WCAG‑compliant
👩🎨 Brand modernization, define and apply a consistent identity across redesigns.
🏡 A new homepage, a trustworthy and dynamic showcase.
😌 Simplified navigation, fewer steps and easier configuration.
👥 Community features, establish special memberships and affordable subscriptions, inspired by Twitch.
🚪Flexible login options, removing the restriction of login only through a Garena Free Fire account.
🎨 Delivery of a scalable UI Kit, to support the Singapore development team.
04 Redesign Strategy ✨
When comparing Booyah with other successful platforms, we discovered crucial differences:
Designing for impact
From 4.3 to 8.6, the numbers
8.6 nps
Together with the recruitment team, we invited 100 players to test the new platform. The outcome was excellent: an NPS of 8.6, compared to 4.3 from the previous version tested five months earlier.
Scaling the impact, next steps
1️⃣ User research and testing in other Latin American countries with regional teams.
2️⃣ Finalize full redesign with country-specific adaptations.
3️⃣ Support implementation with the China development team.
you’ve reachead the end!