META: HORIZON WORLDS
WORLD BUILDING IN VIRTUAL REALITY
In 2020 I got the opportunity to continue my work with Virtual Reality in the biggest project and the largest team I’ve been part of so far in my career.
What started off as an R&D initiative in the company known then as Facebook evolved to a fully released product in the same company, now renamed to Meta and with an expanded focus on the future of immersive, social worlds.
During my time at Meta I worked as a Design Manager in the World Builder Tools and Games Content teams.
I supported a group of amazing designers and prototypers to envision and ship features & content that enables people to create and enjoy experiences in virtual reality.
Virtual Community
Horizon Worlds is a social community, and therefore social interaction was a driving factor for everything we designed. This manifested in everything from the onboarding experience the first time a user launched Horizon, to how game mechanics aimed to create social interaction between players.
Human Collaboration
The building tools in Horizon Worlds are both quite playful and powerful to use. They are also great for people not used to working in 3D on a flat screen due to the tactile nature of manipulating objects in virtual reality. Collaboration between creators is also a big value-add; working in realtime together with other people is not only effective, it also creates a social space.
Arena Clash
We worked on many games but an important milestone was the launch of Arena Clash, both because it was a fun team-based shooter and because of all the hard work the team put into making the technology behind the game available on the platform.
ROLE & LEARNINGS
My Role.
DESIGN MANAGEMENT
CREATIVE DIRECTION
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
DESIGN RECRUITMENT
DESIGN GUIDELINES
Learnings.
THE ROLE OF DESIGN IN A LARGE ORGANIZATION
PRODUCT STRATEGY FOR CREATION TOOLS
CROSS FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION
SUPPORTING BOTTOMS UP CULTURE
Outcomes.
SUPPORTED THE TEAM FROM R&D TO FULL RELEASE IN THE US
GREW THE USER BASE CONSIDERABLY
MET SOME GREAT PEOPLE ALONG THE WAY