skate
Designing the heart of Skate’s multiplayer meant building systems that made finding your crew and skating together feel as natural as dropping into a halfpipe. I owned the UX for all social features — from the Social Hub to the Rip Card — creating the connective tissue for Skate’s community in a brand-new live-service, free-to-play world.
Industry
Video Games
Company
EA Full Circle
Role
UX Designer
Date
May 2024
At a Glance
Problem:
Skate’s new live-service multiplayer needed a from-scratch social layer that connected players across platforms without breaking gameplay flow.
Solution:
I designed the Social Hub as a centralized space for friends, parties, and server connections, plus the Rip Card, a player identity system that made recognition and self-expression part of every interaction.
Impact:
Quick-action invites → more spontaneous session joins
Cross-platform friends list unified EA + platform networks
Built a unified framework for future live-service social features
“I was skating, saw my friend, and we were riding together in seconds. Didn’t even have to think about it.”
The Full Story
The Social Hub: More Than a Menu
When you log into Skate, you drop into San Vansterdam, alive with players skating, exploring, and making the city feel lived-in. The challenge was turning a crowd of individuals into connected crews.
It wasn’t about slapping another menu on top. The Social Hub was meant to be the heartbeat of Skate’s multiplayer, a space where connecting felt as fluid as skating itself. Every barrier we could remove — platform limits, awkward navigation, systems that felt like chores — was on the chopping block.
From Concept to Crew Finder
I took ownership of the Social Hub’s UX, collaborating with social systems designers, engineers, and the Player Safety team to design a frictionless, cross-platform system:
Friends List with real-time status for EA and platform friends in one place
Party System with seamless invites and join-in-progress
Server Player List so you can see who’s nearby and connect instantly
Search Tool to add friends by username or platform ID without leaving the flow
Notifications & Settings to manage privacy and communication without guesswork
The philosophy was simple: if you think about connecting, you should be able to do it in one or two seconds.
Rip Card: Your Skate Identity
The Social Hub connected you to people. The Rip Card told them who you were. Achievements, style, progress — all in one snapshot. Players could equip icons, titles, and backgrounds they’d earned, turning every encounter into a small act of self-expression.
It wasn’t just flair. Seeing someone’s Rip Card told you whether they were a casual explorer, a trick master, or a city Resident rebuilding the streets. That kind of recognition encouraged more spontaneous interaction.
Designing for All Types of Players
We designed for three key groups:
Growth Players who needed obvious, low-pressure entry points into social play
Genre Players who expected depth and control
Legacy Players who demanded strong privacy tools and precise control
Every flow offered a quick option and a more advanced customization path.
Flows Without Friction
Our first prototypes buried social tools deep in menus, and playtests quickly showed how that broke momentum. The final design brought core actions — inviting, joining, messaging — into contextual quick-action menus triggered in-world. No menu hunt. No broken flow.
Testing the Ride
Studio-wide playtests and telemetry revealed clear trends:
Contextual actions were used far more than menu-based ones
Casual players felt less anxious about joining groups
Sessions and activities started more often when social prompts appeared at the right moment
What I’m Proud Of
Watching players reunite without planning, and seeing new players find groups within minutes, proved the system worked. It didn’t just function — it made belonging part of the gameplay loop.
What Worked and What Didn’t
Integrating Player Safety early was a major win. Features like blocking and reporting were solid from day one. The Rip Card also sparked conversations we didn’t expect, which made it more than just a profile.
If I could change something, I’d push for earlier quantitative tracking of social metrics like friend adds and party creation. It would have given us even more clarity on retention and iteration priorities.
The Lessons I’m Taking Forward
Context is king. Social tools work best when they show up right where the player needs them
Social identity can spark interaction just as effectively as direct invites
Live-service social UX needs to be flexible for features that don’t even exist yet
