PlayStation Extra
App Concept
Experience Design
Context
The brief: design a mobile app for an event that doesn't exist yet.
The prompt gave five fixed parameters:
1) Task
A dedicated app for the fictional PlayStation Extra 2027 experiential event.
2) Design Constraint
Incorporate PlayStationโs brand, design language, and design philosophy
3) Must Haves
โEvent Registrationโ and โEntrance Passโ flows for the event
4) Audience
Gen Z participants
5) Problem Statement
โTo enable users to excitedly participate in and enjoy the event through the worlds of games and music.โ
Everything else was open, including the event itself.
I treated that openness as two deliverables instead of one.
1) Deliverable
A high-fidelity mobile app prototype
2) Deliverable
A fictional experiential event concept and plan
I broke down the overall purpose of the challenge into smaller goals for the design.
For existing fans of PlayStation games
Get Excited about PlayStation IP
For those unfamiliar with PlayStation
Greater publicity for PlayStation
My personal love for game music
Research
Gen Z needs more than an app; they need a reason to show up.
What types of experiential events exist?
Gamified and Interactive (e.g. Pokรฉmon GO Fest)
B. Brand Activations (e.g. PlayStation 5 Launch Events)
C. Museums + Installations (e.g. teamLab, Mercer Labs)
Takeaways
Live events are exciting and build emotional connection and engagement! App can serve as an interface and interaction with the live event.
What gets Gen Z excited?
According to Eventbrite
78% of Gen Z
would rather spend on experiences than material things
On TikTok, 2024
400M
views on #SpotifyWrapped
Takeaways
Gen Z are excited by experiences over purchases, personalized content, and social media engagement.
What is PlayStation and Sonyโs Design Identity?
Reading Sony Design Stories on their blog, I came upon the following keywords based on past designs, installations, and events.
Accessibility
Welcoming
Immersion
Multi-Dimensional, Multi-Sensory
Problem Statement
How do you get people excited about an event through an app, without the app becoming a substitute for actually being there?
Concept and Ideation
NFC, not AR, VR, or QR.
Explorations and Brainstorming
Music and games as social hobbies; building community for Gen Z
Fandom and personality, central to someone's hobbies
Where do we listen to music? How do we share our music tastes online?
Gamified events and interesting interactions: AR, VR, QR Codes, NFC Tapโฆ
Decision
NFC over AR, VR, or QR codes, for immersion.
Reasoning
AR, VR, and QR scanning all depend on a phone camera and reliable lighting, which is unpredictable at an event. NFC needed neither: a tap, not a scan, making it the most seamless and reliable option across every room in the venue.
Early Wireframe Sketch
Event Map Mockup
Final Design
PlayStation Blue, fluid motion, and four flows built around the tap.
1) Tap your phone to the station
NFC tap your phone to stations in unique themed rooms, each playing a unique game and its songs.
2) Track live behavior
Create visual effects in the room by NFC tap, like fireworks or butterflies. Meanwhile, the app tracks time spent in each room.
3) Personalized Reward
Generate a unique musical persona based on behavior data to share on social media, with recommended games.
Event Concept
An experiential pop-up event! Go around the world to experience PlayStation IP, with uniquely themed rooms, each playing a gameโs music with gameplay videos playing on the walls.
Type
SST, PlayStation's brand font
Brand Color + Motion
PlayStation brand blue
Fluid motions, seamless
Dissolve, gradient, and fade
Validation
I designed the app to avoid needing a map. Users wanted one anyway.
Tested the app with 5 Gen-Z users, two of whom were already PlayStation owners. I got the following feedback and incorporated it into my final design.
"Why wasn't there a map?"
Map: left out to avoid over-guiding; added back a minimal map after users asked to orient themselves.
"I want to connect my previous PlayStation purchase history!"
PlayStation owners pushed harder than expected; reshaped registration and the reward structure to tie into PlayStation account and previous history.
Reflection
Commit early, adapt later.
One interaction forced every decision to justify itself against it, but "avoid over-guiding" and "give no orientation at all" turned out to be two different decisions.
If I had more time and this was going into productionโฆ
Validate NFC against alternatives with engineers
Test which behavior data actually improves persona personalization
Push installation design further, room by room
Design for accessibility from the start
