Halo IRL.

Role

UX Lead — Halo Outpost Discovery

Owned the full UX process from information architecture through wireframes, taking over a piecemeal third-party design and shipping a complete companion app in three months.

Responsibilities

Problem definition

Information architecture

Wireframes

Prototype and validation

AR/Scanner UX

Team

1 UX Lead · 1 UI Lead · 2 Artists · 3 Vendor Engineers

Date

Summer 2019

The Problem

The event was real.
The app wasn't ready.

Halo Outpost Discovery was a traveling real-world Halo experience launching across North America in the summer of 2019. Fans were buying tickets to a physical event that included theaters, VR, gameplay, and a museum. The companion app needed to be their digital guide, ticket, and scorecard. We inherited an incomplete design from a third-party vendor with three months to ship.

My Decisions

Decisions that bridged
two worlds.

01Design Leadership

The design needed an owner.

We inherited an incomplete design from a third-party vendor. The scaffolding was there but the experience was non-existent. My job was to build the UX on top of what they had, keep what worked, and make it feel like Halo in three months.

Vendor IA — inherited

Product audit

Their tech. Our design.

The vendor had built technology but not an experience. There was no sign-in flow. Gamification and progression weren't tied to any rewards. Medals, leaderboards, and collections needed to be designed from scratch. The app didn't feel like Halo. My job was to build the experience around what they had built.

Redesigned site map — full wireframe

02Physical / Digital

Your phone was the ticket.

Attendees received a physical badge to access events. We provided an option to replace it with their phone. The scanner let players check into events and hunt for AR content hidden across the event floor.

AR Design

Check in. Then hunt.

After signing in, players landed on home where a single scanner button did two jobs. Tapping Scanner opened the camera with a UI overlay showing proximity to hidden data fragments. Finding and scanning a fragment in physical space advanced Challenges. Tapping Barcode opened the camera to scan the badge, converting it into a digital pass players could hold up instead of wearing a lanyard.

Not Signed In

Scanner

Map

Scanner

Barcode

Scan your pass

Scanner flow — AR hunt and badge scan

03Contextual Design

The floor plan was just the beginning.

Each venue had its own 3D floor map. Players selected their city when they arrived and the right map loaded. From there they could navigate the physical space, find what they needed, and track down their active challenges.

Contextual Design

Same system. Every city.

Each city required its own 3D map built by a 3D artist. I designed the system and wireframes the artists worked from. Every venue needed accurate floor plans, schedules, and attraction data before anything could be built. Active challenge locations and data fragment sites were pinned on the map, connecting the physical hunt to the digital experience. The system stayed consistent. The maps were unique to each venue.

Map Flow — Sketch

04Gamification

The loop ended in the real world.

Challenges were tied to the physical event. Players scanned data fragments across the floor to complete them, tracked their progress in the app, and claimed physical medals at locations pinned on the map. The reward wasn't digital. You had to go get it.

Progression design

Progress you could hold.

Designing challenges around a physical reward changed how progression felt. Completing a challenge wasn't just a notification or a digital unlock. It meant finding a location on the map and walking up to claim something real. That connection between digital progress and physical payoff was the core of the gamification design.

Original wireframe flow — sketch

Final UI — created by the design team

The Craft Moment

Three months.
Zero compromise.

Swipe up.
Find your challenge.

She made it
feel like Halo.

A single swipe up from home revealed everything. Challenges, progression, the path to a physical reward. I designed the interaction to feel like a natural extension of the home screen, not a separate section players had to find. The swipe was the moment the digital experience connected to the physical one.

Gabriela is an AI built from the neural patterns of UNSC Admiral Gabriela Castaneda. She wasn't a mascot. She was a mission. I designed her into the FTUE as the player's guide, giving the app a voice rooted in Halo lore. The app felt like Halo because she was Halo.

Swipe up — challenge reveal

Gabriela — FTUE guide

Results

Three months.
One summer.
Two worlds.

Halo Outpost Discovery launched on schedule across North America in the summer of 2019. Fans experienced the Halo universe in physical spaces and carried their progress in their pocket. The app was the ticket, the map, the guide, and the scorecard.