Director of UX Design, PlayStation
Leading the core platform experience for a new console generation, including navigation, information architecture, interaction model, and visual direction across a global ecosystem.
Overview
Designing at PlayStation during the launch of a new console generation meant redefining the core experience of the platform, not iterating on what came before. This work focused on creating a fundamentally new navigation system, interaction model, and visual direction that could support how players engage with games, media, and services across devices.
The goal was not a “next generation” refresh, but a new generation experience. One that rethought structure, interaction, and visual expression to better serve content, scale over time, and feel unmistakably premium.
Discovering what to play next, either solo or with friends, was a key gap in the PS4 experience and a major opportunity for PS5.
The Approach
The work centered on redefining the core navigation, information architecture, and interaction model for the platform. This meant rethinking how content, features, and system functions are organized and accessed, based on how players naturally move through the experience over time.
A key shift was moving toward a content-first visual system. Rather than using brand color as a persistent backdrop, the interface was designed to recede, allowing games, media, and moments of play to take center stage. The PlayStation voice became more intentional and expressive, surfacing at teachable moments where guidance, feedback, or emphasis added value, rather than being omnipresent.
The new visual direction aimed to feel sophisticated and opulent, reinforcing a sense of quality and immersion without visual noise. Typography, motion, and contrast were carefully balanced to support clarity while elevating the emotional tone of the platform.
With over 100 potential player actions across content and system behaviors, establishing a clear priority order was essential to shaping a coherent information architecture.
Three visual directions tested varying emphasis between publisher content and PlayStation branding. The selected direction prioritized an opulent, content-first experience.
This work was deeply cross-disciplinary. Collaboration with industrial design teams ensured alignment between the physical console, controller, and on-screen interactions. Sound designers shaped auditory feedback and emotional cues, while marketing partners helped ensure the experience reinforced the PlayStation brand in a more mature, confident way.
In parallel, close collaboration with commerce, mobile, and web teams ensured their use cases were fully represented in the new information architecture. The interaction model and visual system were designed to scale across surfaces, supporting a cohesive experience wherever players engaged with PlayStation.
The final visual direction prioritized an opulent, content-first experience. We reserved the Playstation blue for educational moments or guidance.
Impact
The result was a cohesive core experience that redefined how players navigate and interact with the PlayStation platform. The new information architecture and interaction model provided a scalable foundation for future growth, while the content-first visual direction elevated immersion and reduced cognitive competition between interface and media.
By aligning hardware, software, sound, and visual design around a shared experience system, PlayStation launched a platform that felt truly generational. Teams across the organization were able to build on a consistent foundation, enabling faster development without sacrificing quality, clarity, or craft.
a closer look at control center
Core interactions were redesigned to keep players in the moment, surfacing the next best action without breaking immersion.
Reflection
This work reinforced the importance of restraint in design. When content is the hero, the role of the system is to frame, guide, and elevate rather than dominate. Designing a new generation experience required rethinking not just structure and interaction, but how and when the brand shows up. At this scale, sophistication comes from intentionality.