PlayStation App

In 2015 I joined PlayStation’s social team. Through a research and data-driven process, we reimagined and completely rebuilt the PlayStation mobile app to serve as a companion to our customers’ gaming experience. 

I kicked off the design for this project with 3 engineers during a hackathon. Our leaders were impressed by the scrappy proof of concept, and greenlit the full redesign of both our Android and iOS apps, using React Native. I led the design team throughout the entire project.

Outcome
We launched in time for the 2017 holiday season. Post-launch I continued to serve in a consulting role to the app team. The app maintains a 4.5+ rating on both app stores, with a sustained increase in engagement—our monthly active users have doubled compared to the old version. The app is also more stable and easier to update.

You can download it from Google Play or the App Store.

Team
3 PMs, 2 scrum teams (one in SF and one in Tokyo) with 12 engineers each, 6 designers, 3 researchers

VR Concepting

As the launch of PSVR approached, we saw the breadth of non-game content that our partners were looking to bring to the platform. I led a team of designers to prototype and pitch VR concepts to leadership. We conducted research and collaborated with engineers to build an update to the PlayStation VR UI that better supports all VR experiences and different types of customer needs.

Throughout the process, we also created and refined a set of VR UI design principles that continue to inform PlayStation’s design for immersive spacial experiences.

Outcome Our concepting and collaboration with engineering led to technical breakthroughs that are powering experiences that were not possible before. The VR UI update will be applied post-launch as a fast-follow improvement.

Team 5 designers, 2 3D artists, 1 prototyper, 1 PM, 5 engineers, 1 researcher

PlayStation Journeys

PlayStation product teams are each centered around an area such as retail, gaming, videos, etc. Each of those teams conceived and created revolutionary and robust experiences, but PlayStation 4 was lacking meaningful and useful connections between those experiences. Our organization was mirrored in our UX.

As we embarked upon the development of the UI for PlayStation 5, we started to fall back into a siloed design process. Working with researchers and PMs, I led the creation of end-to-end user journey maps that would allow leadership and all cross-functional team members to understand the full picture of the system we were building.

These journey maps and scenarios were the backbone for the PS5 UX, and they also became the channel for collaboration and communication between our teams. Once the end-to-end scenarios were agreed on by each team, we were able to efficiently prioritize and coordinate our roadmaps, knowing that we were all working towards a cohesive end-to-end user journey. 

Outcome
The journey maps and scenarios are the source of truth for PS5. Anyone working on the system can see how and where their feature lives within the broader user experience.

Team
I was the only designer on this project, working with the Head of UX and other team leads to create frameworks and processes that would work across the organization.