[ → curius ]
[ → linkedin ]
[ → twitter ]
resume.pdf
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Design Intern
May 2023, 12 weeks
VR & Design Systems @Roblox
A global app platform with over 40 million user-created games, Roblox’s ecosystem spans the vast fields of mobile, desktop, web, console, and now, virtual reality (VR).
I joined Roblox on May 23rd as the only VR-dedicated designer in the org— working with UXR, design systems, content design, engineering, and product to ship simple and approachable experiences in Roblox's new metaverse.
VR is a challenging medium, because its very fabric consists of tricking the brain into conditions of embodiment.
While existing Roblox players expect a seamless and familiar experience when moving from mobile to VR, a shift in medium unlocks a new set of constraints & design patterns.
When people experience VR, discomfort is common.
What they see, and the lack of motion detected by a their inner ear creates a sense of motion-sickness. Previously, multiple options could be adjusted separately, but casual users didn’t understand the options + they worked most effectively when configured as a set.
Working deeply in our design system, I led UI for our "Comfort Settings" menu project, & a redesign of the In-Experience Controls Menu— from conducting competitive analyses to a project re-scope.
Reduced motion related complaints by over 50% among internal testers
Enhancing gameplay experiences for all player levels via personalized settings
I successfully advocated for our MVP (now live), which allows players to easily adjust the amount of motion in VR based on their sensitivity.
Collaborating on a sample experience to showcase the possibilities of in-game calls.
After launching functionality that enables game developers to add Facetiming to games, Roblox Design’s sample experience was performing poorly in tests.
I conducted further UXR with 6 participants on the existing menu to identify issues with "Camera Mode" & "Location." Identifying that iconography & UI design were creating ambiguity, I worked with our art director (David) to create 8 new icons & UI improvements for our design system (uiBlox).
Improved UXR metrics like task completion rate and TT by over 30% during testing (ie. “Change the camera mode from Freeplay to Cinematic”).
✨ Experience has since been played 10.2 million times & counting
A responsive Settings design MVP. Designed hand-in-hand with Andrew Peng, Andrea Fletcher, & Kelly Steinhart.
Being on both the Design Systems & VR team, my decisions had to feel native to the spacial nature of 3D, while staying consistent with the rest of Roblox's design: championing our 66 million DAUs. Shipped Roblox’s first ever accessibility settings, supporting 66 million DAUs as the first step towards more customizable and considerate settings.
🔗 You can play around with my design in the Accessibility section of your Roblox Desktop or Mobile app :)
The gravity and scale of a company like Roblox can be daunting— any change requires the utmost care.
My time at Roblox was undoubtedly uneventful– I went from my initial project, which was projected to take the entire summer, to ~9 other ones, reflecting pivot after pivot.
As a designer, I was laying the groundwork for completely new paradigms at Roblox. Now, I know better than ever the ripple effect of my work, & the power that passion plays within design. If immersed with enough empathy, effort, and persistence— a designer can intimately learn a completely new medium in 12 weeks.
On July 27, 2023 (mid-internship), we launched to our first million unique beta users on the Meta store— cheers to what comes next.
Learnings
Thank yous
David Navarro, Kevin Logan, Yale, Dan Rader, Andrea & Andrew, Carlo, Interns, Alita, Vedant, Alex, Joshua
Know flexibility
In the face of complex technical constraints and an incredible amount of tech debt– I’d often work more closely with engineers than designers to define scope, specs, and make visual tweaks. Unearthing new knowledge and context helped me take on different challenges– I feel that my perspective broadened and I became a better designer because of it.
Don’t work in silos
Proactively reaching out is essential to success— especially in a bureaucratic yet fast paced environment like Roblox. I see an alternate reality where I could have expended months of time and effort on less impactful aspects of my project founded on older assumptions, rather than working on things we had an urgent need to ship.
Build foundations for the future
While many of my projects were shipped or in the process of being shipped by the end of the summer, I was always encouraged to identify EVPs (Excellent Viable Product opportunities for the future). While I'm incredibly excited 66 million DAUs can experience my work- it turns out that the end goal is not always shipping- laying the groundwork for the future experience is just as important ;)
find my design interesting?
let’s conspire creatively.
back to top
here, have a cheese for the road.
© Aileen Luo. 2025
[ → curius ]
[ → linkedin ]
[ → twitter ]
resume.pdf
Back to Home
Design Intern
May 2023, 12 weeks
VR & Design Systems @Roblox
A global app platform with over 40 million user-created games, Roblox’s ecosystem spans the vast fields of mobile, desktop, web, console, and now, virtual reality (VR).
I joined Roblox on May 23rd as the only VR-dedicated designer in the org— working with UXR, design systems, content design, engineering, and product to ship simple and approachable experiences in Roblox's new metaverse.
VR is a challenging medium, because its very fabric consists of tricking the brain into conditions of embodiment.
While existing Roblox players expect a seamless and familiar experience when moving from mobile to VR, a shift in medium unlocks a new set of constraints & design patterns.
When people experience VR, discomfort is common.
What they see, and the lack of motion detected by a their inner ear creates a sense of motion-sickness. Previously, multiple options could be adjusted separately, but casual users didn’t understand the options + they worked most effectively when configured as a set.
Working deeply in our design system, I led UI for our "Comfort Settings" menu project, & a redesign of the In-Experience Controls Menu— from conducting competitive analyses to a project re-scope.
Reduced motion related complaints by over 50% among internal testers
Enhancing gameplay experiences for all player levels via personalized settings
I successfully advocated for our MVP (now live), which allows players to easily adjust the amount of motion in VR based on their sensitivity.
Collaborating on a sample experience to showcase the possibilities of in-game calls.
After launching functionality that enables game developers to add Facetiming to games, Roblox Design’s sample experience was performing poorly in tests.
I conducted further UXR with 6 participants on the existing menu to identify issues with "Camera Mode" & "Location." Identifying that iconography & UI design were creating ambiguity, I worked with our art director (David) to create 8 new icons & UI improvements for our design system (uiBlox).
Improved UXR metrics like task completion rate and TT by over 30% during testing (ie. “Change the camera mode from Freeplay to Cinematic”).
✨ Experience has since been played 10.2 million times & counting
A responsive Settings design MVP. Designed hand-in-hand with Andrew Peng, Andrea Fletcher, & Kelly Steinhart.
Being on both the Design Systems & VR team, my decisions had to feel native to the spacial nature of 3D, while staying consistent with the rest of Roblox's design: championing our 66 million DAUs. Shipped Roblox’s first ever accessibility settings, supporting 66 million DAUs as the first step towards more customizable and considerate settings.
🔗 You can play around with my design in the Accessibility section of your Roblox Desktop or Mobile app :)
The gravity and scale of a company like Roblox can be daunting— any change requires the utmost care.
My time at Roblox was undoubtedly uneventful– I went from my initial project, which was projected to take the entire summer, to ~9 other ones, reflecting pivot after pivot.
As a designer, I was laying the groundwork for completely new paradigms at Roblox. Now, I know better than ever the ripple effect of my work, & the power that passion plays within design. If immersed with enough empathy, effort, and persistence— a designer can intimately learn a completely new medium in 12 weeks.
On July 27, 2023 (mid-internship), we launched to our first million unique beta users on the Meta store— cheers to what comes next.
Learnings
Thank yous
David Navarro, Kevin Logan, Yale, Dan Rader, Andrea & Andrew, Carlo, Interns, Alita, Vedant, Alex, Joshua
Know flexibility
In the face of complex technical constraints and an incredible amount of tech debt– I’d often work more closely with engineers than designers to define scope, specs, and make visual tweaks. Unearthing new knowledge and context helped me take on different challenges– I feel that my perspective broadened and I became a better designer because of it.
Don’t work in silos
Proactively reaching out is essential to success— especially in a bureaucratic yet fast paced environment like Roblox. I see an alternate reality where I could have expended months of time and effort on less impactful aspects of my project founded on older assumptions, rather than working on things we had an urgent need to ship.
Build foundations for the future
While many of my projects were shipped or in the process of being shipped by the end of the summer, I was always encouraged to identify EVPs (Excellent Viable Product opportunities for the future). While I'm incredibly excited 66 million DAUs can experience my work- it turns out that the end goal is not always shipping- laying the groundwork for the future experience is just as important ;)
find my design interesting?
let’s conspire creatively.
back to top
here, have a cheese for the road.
© Aileen Luo. 2025
[ → curius ]
[ → linkedin ]
[ → twitter ]
resume.pdf
Back to Home
Design Intern
May 2023, 12 weeks
VR & Design Systems @Roblox
A global app platform with over 40 million user-created games, Roblox’s ecosystem spans the vast fields of mobile, desktop, web, console, and now, virtual reality (VR).
I joined Roblox on May 23rd as the only VR-dedicated designer in the org— working with UXR, design systems, content design, engineering, and product to ship simple and approachable experiences in Roblox's new metaverse.
VR is a challenging medium, because its very fabric consists of tricking the brain into conditions of embodiment.
While existing Roblox players expect a seamless and familiar experience when moving from mobile to VR, a shift in medium unlocks a new set of constraints & design patterns.
When people experience VR, discomfort is common.
What they see, and the lack of motion detected by a their inner ear creates a sense of motion-sickness. Previously, multiple options could be adjusted separately, but casual users didn’t understand the options + they worked most effectively when configured as a set.
Working deeply in our design system, I led UI for our "Comfort Settings" menu project, & a redesign of the In-Experience Controls Menu— from conducting competitive analyses to a project re-scope.
Reduced motion related complaints by over 50% among internal testers
Enhancing gameplay experiences for all player levels via personalized settings
I successfully advocated for our MVP (now live), which allows players to easily adjust the amount of motion in VR based on their sensitivity.
Collaborating on a sample experience to showcase the possibilities of in-game calls.
After launching functionality that enables game developers to add Facetiming to games, Roblox Design’s sample experience was performing poorly in tests.
I conducted further UXR with 6 participants on the existing menu to identify issues with "Camera Mode" & "Location." Identifying that iconography & UI design were creating ambiguity, I worked with our art director (David) to create 8 new icons & UI improvements for our design system (uiBlox).
Improved UXR metrics like task completion rate and TT by over 30% during testing (ie. “Change the camera mode from Freeplay to Cinematic”).
✨ Experience has since been played 10.2 million times & counting
A responsive Settings design MVP
Designed hand-in-hand with Andrew Peng, Andrea Fletcher, & Kelly Steinhart.
Being on both the Design Systems & VR team, my decisions had to feel native to the spacial nature of 3D, while staying consistent with the rest of Roblox's design: championing our 66 million DAUs. Shipped Roblox’s first ever accessibility settings, supporting 66 million DAUs as the first step towards more customizable and considerate settings.
🔗 You can play around with my design in the Accessibility section of your Roblox Desktop or Mobile app :)
The gravity and scale of a company like Roblox can be daunting— any change requires the utmost care.
My time at Roblox was undoubtedly uneventful– I went from my initial project, which was projected to take the entire summer, to ~9 other ones, reflecting pivot after pivot.
As a designer, I was laying the groundwork for completely new paradigms at Roblox. Now, I know better than ever the ripple effect of my work, & the power that passion plays within design. If immersed with enough empathy, effort, and persistence— a designer can intimately learn a completely new medium in 12 weeks.
On July 27, 2023 (mid-internship), we launched to our first million unique beta users on the Meta store— cheers to what comes next.
Learnings
Thank yous
David Navarro, Kevin Logan, Yale, Dan Rader, Andrea & Andrew, Carlo, Interns, Alita, Vedant, Alex, Joshua
Know flexibility
In the face of complex technical constraints and an incredible amount of tech debt– I’d often work more closely with engineers than designers to define scope, specs, and make visual tweaks. Unearthing new knowledge and context helped me take on different challenges– I feel that my perspective broadened and I became a better designer because of it.
Don’t work in silos
Proactively reaching out is essential to success— especially in a bureaucratic yet fast paced environment like Roblox. I see an alternate reality where I could have expended months of time and effort on less impactful aspects of my project founded on older assumptions, rather than working on things we had an urgent need to ship.
Build foundations for the future
While many of my projects were shipped or in the process of being shipped by the end of the summer, I was always encouraged to identify EVPs (Excellent Viable Product opportunities for the future). While I'm incredibly excited 66 million DAUs can experience my work- it turns out that the end goal is not always shipping- laying the groundwork for the future experience is just as important ;)
find my design interesting?
let’s conspire creatively.
back to top
here, have a cheese for the road.
© Aileen Luo. 2025