ILMxLAB (Lucasfilm) · 2020–2021
Play as a droid repair technician who gets swept up into a grand adventure when you crash land on the planet Batuu.
Shipped Nov 2020 and Sept 2021 on Quest.
As the UI Lead, I owned end-to-end design for all in-game UI features: menus, typography, icons, AR-in-VR HUD elements, custom UI shaders, tutorials, localization, settings, and motion graphics.
I also designed the mission progression, challenges, and journal systems, untangling the complexity of nonlinear story progression. Worked closely with the art director, game design leads, and engineering leads. Shipped in Unreal Engine.
I was the first UI/UX designer ever hired at ILM. I shipped all the UI for the first launch in November 2020 in just 5 months.
Achieving "AR in VR"
With so many different mechanics to represent, I championed a philosophy of less is more.
I built an in-world spatial UI system using a collection of shaders with different parameters — keeping it minimal and avoiding too many elements visible at a time.
All-Kit. Tool icons appear when the player presses the joystick. In-world helper icons for puzzles appear at 3 m.
The compass. An objective marker located in world space, rendering on top of all geometry at a maintained minimum size.
In-world shop UI. The credits display animates as the player approaches the counter.
The Gauntlet
The gauntlet held three main play features: Holocalls, Scanning, and Compass.
The initial design was difficult to use, but a full redesign wasn't feasible before launch. I improved usability through small, precise adjustments — making it more ergonomic and the buttons more legible.
Compass Navigation
"Where do I go next?" Just hit the compass button. A simple concept that proved extra tricky as a diegetic VR element.
Challenges: a 3D arrow mounted to your wrist is far more complex than a 2D screen element. Our levels have winding paths with no long sight lines. And it had to work across every single mission across multiple levels.
Solution: I condensed a wide range of ideas, removed competing features, and made an objective marker located in world space that renders above all geometry. Then I audited all missions and set best practices for level designers.
Pause Menu
The workhorse UI that holds everything together. I refined the UX and visual design for clear legibility across a wide range of content.
Settings
I made settings easily accessible from both the main menu and the pause menu. Many settings have states dependent on other settings, so keeping the design files well-documented saved significant engineering overhead.
After launch we shipped highly requested settings in a patch to satisfy experienced VR players who expect detailed control over their play experience.
Inventory Pouch
As inventory items grew in the second release, I worked closely with the gameplay engineer to design an expandable inventory balancing quick access with capacity.
We prioritized weapons in the mini slots, and later added an organize mode. I also gathered feedback to ship the shoulder holsters feature, letting items be stored on the player's back.
The inventory pouch was one of the most complex UI mechanics — turning a conventional 2D element into a 3D diegetic object means inheriting all the constraints of real-world industrial design.
Tutorials
In VR, many features are attached to the body or mapped to controller buttons you can't see. I recommended letting players attach each object and take a moment to learn it before moving on.
I worked with the level designer and gameplay engineer to build the intro sequence and 20+ tutorials spread across the level.
The inventory pouch was particularly tricky — it lives on the chest, so we emphasized it early, reinforcing the action of picking up an item and stashing it in the pouch.
