Delight at Scale: A Case Study in Designing a 5-Minute Experience for 10,000
Overview:
A 5-minute game to turn pre-show wait time into a shared, high-energy experience. Players make moves on their phones and watch the action unfold on the Sphere’s giant screen. Designed for 10,000+ participants, it had to be fast, intuitive, and accessible to all. We minimized attention switches, streamlined onboarding, and made every moment count.
The result? A fun, social warm-up act that made audiences feel like part of the show.
Role:
Lead UX Designer and Researcher
Tools Used:
Figma • Miro • React • Unreal Engine • Illustrator • Photoshop
Timeline:
Problem:
It started with a simple observation: before a show or concert, the wait felt endless for many audience members. We noticed people were already glued to their phones—often playing games to pass the time. That got us thinking:
What if we could turn that idle time into something engaging, interactive, and memorable?
How do we design a 5-minute experience that instantly delights the audience and keeps them engaged before the main show?
How do we make it accessible to 10,000 players, regardless of their background?
Proposed Solution:
A fast, 5-minute experience that transformed idle pre-show time into something interactive and memorable.
Megapachinko is a large-scale pachinko game where players bet on an emoji. Their chosen emoji drops through the board, bouncing off hazards along the way. Surviving emojis earn points, which can be redeemed for concession credits at the Sphere.
While players make their selections on their personal devices, the outcome plays out in real time on the Sphere’s massive immersive screen—transforming individual inputs into a collective, high-energy visual spectacle.
Our next challenge: How do visitors start participating with minimal onboarding friction?
Storyboards Sealed the Deal
The next challenge? Getting the team—and more importantly, the VP of Sphere—on board. This is where storyboards came in clutch.
To QR code or not to QR code?
Unless you're visiting from another planet, you probably have a phone. It’s the one device people are already comfortable with. Handing out external devices? That just means more instructions, more confusion, and a longer wait for the fun to start. Since we needed a quick cycle to delight, the choice was clear—QR code it was
The Two-Screen Challenge: Designing for Split Attention
In this experience, players made their moves on their phones—and then watched the chaos unfold on the Sphere’s immersive screen.
Sounds simple, but what happens when two screens compete for attention?
Chaos!
So our job? Make sure players weren’t left thinking, “Wait, where do I look? Did I win? What just happened?”
We had to choreograph the two-screen dance just right—guiding attention smoothly back and forth like a well-timed game of ping-pong (but with emojis and explosions).
User Flows
Attention flows one way at a time. Throwing information on multiple screens simultaneously doesn’t speed things up—it overwhelms and causes cognitive overload. Like ping pong, the ball can only be on one side at a time.
Wireframes
Prototyping
We used a combination of visuals, haptics, and sound to cue players when it was time to shift attention.
The real challenge wasn’t looking up or down—it was switching between the two smoothly. So, we minimized those switches. . This experience had only four attention shifts, though that number varied depending on the interaction we designed.
For more, head to the Interaction Design section.
This is where I let my technical skills shine—I built the following prototype using React. After setting up the placeholder front-end design and building key React components, I handed the project over to the backend engineering team for networking integrations.
Testing
After building on a design, it was crucial to validate our assumptions—especially around attention splitting. We started with small-scale user testing (20-40 participants) and later moved to large-scale venue testing with up to 200 people.
I led this effort from start to finish, including participant recruiting, study design, data collection, and presenting insights. For more on what we were researching, check out the User Research page.
The findings from these sessions directly shaped iterations and refinements to the user experience. A quick glance at our user testing results.
Bringing It to Life: Matching Aesthetics and Refining UX
The next step was adding some visual flare. I worked closely with the creative director to ensure the visuals on mobile matched the game’s aesthetic. Then, it was back to refining the low-fidelity user flows into high-fidelity versions.
Impact
23% increase in ticket sales for Postcards from Earth
72% of surveyed players said it made the wait time feel shorter
Audience social sentiment improved, with a 32% increase in positive mentions about the Sphere experience on social media
31% of players said they'd return for another show specifically because of the interactive pre-show experience
The 5-minute interactive game we designed for Sphere in Vegas had a significant impact on audience engagement and business metrics:
“Didn’t expect to be playing a game before the show, but this was so fun!”
“It had a wonderful sense of novelty and a flavor of being part of something epic.”
Here’s what some audience members had to say:
From Concept to Code: UI Development Process
For a closer look at my development process and the tools I'm proficient in, visit the UI Development section.