Meta Horizon Worlds
Transforming mobile loading screen friction into engagement with interactive mini-games and personalized content.
Transforming mobile loading screen friction into engagement with interactive mini-games and personalized content.
For Horizon Worlds mobile, loading times vary dramatically based on world complexity, network conditions, and device performance. A smaller, casual hangout world could load in 7 seconds. A complex multiplayer game? 45+ seconds. That variability creates unpredictable moments where users decide whether to stay or bail.
For Horizon Worlds mobile, loading times vary dramatically based on world complexity, network conditions, and device performance. A smaller, casual hangout world could load in 7 seconds. A complex multiplayer game? 45+ seconds. That variability creates unpredictable moments where users decide whether to stay or bail.
For Horizon Worlds mobile, loading times vary dramatically based on world complexity, network conditions, and device performance. A smaller, casual hangout world could load in 7 seconds. A complex multiplayer game? 45+ seconds. That variability creates unpredictable moments where users decide whether to stay or bail.
org
Engagement
role
Product Designer
year
2025
Mobile
Prototyping
Visual design
Product strategy
Interaction design
Stakeholder management
Challenge
We're losing 1 in 4 users in some of our top Worlds due to lengthy load times.
4-9%
abandonment daily
>36s
average load for mobile deep linking
23-27%
abandonment rates in some top performing worlds
Approach
From passive to purposeful
Rather than just showing pretty video game trailers that users passively watched on repeat while they waited, I hypothesized that giving people something fresh and meaningful to do or learn would reduce abandonment.
Key insight
Users of varying tenure need different things during those crucial seconds of waiting to get in the game—whether it be learning the basics of how to play, staying engaged, or reducing wait-time anxiety.
Rather than just showing pretty video game trailers that users passively watched on repeat while they waited, I hypothesized that giving people something fresh and meaningful to do or learn would reduce abandonment.
Key insight
Users of varying tenure need different things during those crucial seconds of waiting to get in the game—whether it be learning the basics of how to play, staying engaged, or reducing wait-time anxiety.
ITERATION 1
Interactive tutorial
Concept
What if we turned loading into onboarding? Let new users learn controls and game mechanics through an interactive tutorial that runs while the world loads. Instead of passive waiting, they'd arrive ready to play.
Why it didn't work
Engineering complexity vs. impact tradeoff. This would have been incredible for new user competence but the engineering lift was too high for the timeline. The solution also didn't scale well for more tenured users.
Learning
Ambitious ideas need to be scalable and balance impact with feasibility early. Great design is about what you can actually ship.
Concept
What if we turned loading into onboarding? Let new users learn controls and game mechanics through an interactive tutorial that runs while the world loads. Instead of passive waiting, they'd arrive ready to play.
Why it didn't work
Engineering complexity vs. impact tradeoff. This would have been incredible for new user competence but the engineering lift was too high for the timeline. The solution also didn't scale well for more tenured users.
Learning
Ambitious ideas need to be scalable and balance impact with feasibility early. Great design is about what you can actually ship.
ITERATION 2
Curated contextual cards
Concept
New users need education and guidance. Returning users need social pull and reasons to stay engaged. So we built a system of 0-4 second cards that adapt to user context and available load time—showing gameplay tips, active quests, social proof, leaderboards, and friend invites based on what matters most to each user segment.
Why this worked
Functional value beats passive entertainment value during friction points. This balanced ambitious user impact with realistic engineering constraints. We could ship it, and it would meaningfully improve the experience.
Learning
Ship the 80% solution that works and creates learning and impact quickly. This approach gave us a clear v1 with paths for iteration.
Concept
New users need education and guidance. Returning users need social pull and reasons to stay engaged. So we built a system of 0-4 second cards that adapt to user context and available load time—showing gameplay tips, active quests, social proof, leaderboards, and friend invites based on what matters most to each user segment.
Why this worked
Functional value beats passive entertainment value during friction points. This balanced ambitious user impact with realistic engineering constraints. We could ship it, and it would meaningfully improve the experience.
Learning
Ship the 80% solution that works and creates iimpact vs. never ships. This approach gave us a clear v1 with clear paths for iteration.
Concept
New users need education and guidance. Returning users need social pull and reasons to stay engaged. So we built a system of 0-4 second cards that adapt to user context and available load time—showing gameplay tips, active quests, social proof, leaderboards, and friend invites based on what matters most to each user segment.
Why this worked
Functional value beats passive entertainment value during friction points. This balanced ambitious user impact with realistic engineering constraints. We could ship it, and it would meaningfully improve the experience.
Learning
Ship the 80% solution that works and creates learning and impact quickly. This approach gave us a clear v1 with paths for iteration.
The timer demonstrates how the system adapts to varying load times (7-45+ seconds). Each card module is 0-4 seconds, ensuring content scales gracefully, curated to each user type for the duration of loading.
The timer demonstrates how the system adapts to varying load times (7-45+ seconds). Each card module is 0-4 seconds, ensuring content scales gracefully, curated to each user type for the duration of loading.
ITERATION 3
Mini-game: 'Load Runner'
Vision
The ultimate evolution: turn loading into play. Users opt into a quest where their avatar runs through a fantastical tunnel maze, collecting orbs and power-ups while the world loads in the background. Every second of wait time becomes a moment of joy and achievement.
Future potential
This concept established a North Star for the experience and got the team genuinely excited about the possibilities to engage users and decrease abandonment. As the loading screen becomes a higher-priority surface, we're now positioned to push for this in future roadmaps. Sometimes the best design work is creating a compelling vision that shifts how people think about a surface or problem space.
Vision
The ultimate evolution: turn loading into play. Users opt into a quest where their avatar runs through a fantastical tunnel maze, collecting orbs and power-ups while the world loads in the background. Every second of wait time becomes a moment of joy and achievement.
Future potential
This concept established a North Star for the experience and got the team genuinely excited about the possibilities to engage users and decrease abandonment. As the loading screen becomes a higher-priority surface, we're now positioned to push for this in future roadmaps. Sometimes the best design work is creating a compelling vision that shifts how people think about a surface or problem space.
Thanks for stopping by!
If you're interested in working together or seeing a deeper dive of my work, I'd love to connect.
Contact
Contact
Thanks for stopping by!
If you're interested in working together or seeing a deeper dive of my work, I'd love to connect.
Contact
Contact