The New York Times Crosswords tutorial is built with game play in mind. In fact, the onboarding process is itself a playful interactive experience. Users are guided through the new online experience by completing game boards designed to drive home the features and rules of their platform. Talk about living your brand!

The interactive tutorial highlights different sections of the crossword puzzle and explains specific tools unique to NYT Premium Crosswords:

• Leisurely, collaborative, or “against the clock” play
• Navigation/UI (keystrokes, highlight modes)
• Pencil vs pen (different utensils)
• Hinting, checking, or revealing words
• Option to print out the puzzle at any point (to continue with pen and paper).

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Our responsibilities on this project

We created the onboarding experience and a product walk-through, contributed iconography and other graphic design elements, and designed and built the HTML and CSS templates that make the whole thing go.