💎 Context

Eesti 2035 is a text based browser 🎮 game that helps school students understand the role of civil society in democratic decision making. It is used in Estonian 🇪🇪 schools as a teaching tool during civic education lessons.

The game introduces voting, public participation and long term planning, showing how individual decisions can influence the future of Estonian society.

💎 My role

I joined the project to update the game’s UX and UI and to support the front end implementation. I redesigned key screens, clarified user flows and implemented the new interface using semantic HTML and modern CSS.

💎 Tools and process

Communication: Slack
UX and prototyping: Figma
Development environment: PhpStorm
Styling: Tailwind CSS
Version control: Git and GitHub

Development and design challenges

This project was delivered by a small team under a tight deadline. The illustrator produced static high fidelity layouts and a full stack developer handled implementation and product decisions. I joined as a UX designer to improve the user flow and support the front end work.

1. I audited the existing UI layouts and rebuilt the user flow in Figma, because there was no interactive prototype.

2. Together with the developer, I prioritised game sections and adjusted the flow to make it easier to understand from the player’s point of view.

3. Using a local copy of the project, I modified the Tailwind CSS-based front end, checked that changes worked correctly, and created detailed GitHub issues with design rationale and code snippets.

4. I helped with testing, reported bugs and wrote the final tickets for the developer before launch.

Sitemap

I created a full sitemap in Figma to map every screen and decision point in the game. This helped us see duplicate steps, remove dead ends and plan a clearer flow for players.

Handoff and tickets

For each change, I wrote clear tickets for the developer, including the design rationale and suggested code. This made the handoff faster and reduced back and forth during implementation.

Results

The game has been adopted by more than 100 schools and used by around 15k players as part of civic education lessons. It continues to be used as an accessible way to introduce democratic decision-making to Estonian students.

For me, this project confirmed how effective small, cross-functional teams can be. It also strengthened my confidence working across UX design and front end code within an existing product.