Shaping and Evolving the Star Citizen Platform
Leveraging UX, UI, and design process expertise to build an innovative, user-centered web ecosystem that supports a global gaming community.
Over the past decade, I’ve contributed to the transformation of Star Citizen’s web ecosystem, launching a diverse suite of digital products and immersive experiences designed to engage players and drive commerce. This platform became the backbone of a community that helped raise over $800 million from 5.6 million players, making it one of the most successful crowdfunded initiatives to date.
I joined the project in 2015, transitioning from Art Director to Product Designer (UI/UX) before stepping into the role of Director of Product Design. Over the years, I’ve guided the platform’s evolution while growing and mentoring a multidisciplinary design team through highly collaborative work with developers, producers, and stakeholders.
Building the Foundations
In the project’s early years, we had two main goals: deliver on our Kickstarter promises to players, and equip our marketing teams with effective tools to support growth.
As one of the lead designers, I worked hands-on on several foundational products for the RSI web platform. These included early versions of Spectrum, our community forums and chat platform; Galactapedia, the official game universe wiki; Issue Council, a player-driven bug reporting tool; and the award-winning Starmap, a 3D experience that let players explore the game’s galaxy right in their browser.
Evolving Design Processes
When I was promoted Director of Product Design, I led the initiative to standardize our workflows and build scalable foundations, in close collaboration with the management team. These efforts fostered alignment, increased efficiency, and empowered designers to deliver consistently high-quality work across our embedded product teams.
Complex Challenges:
Building While Scaling
As the platform grew, I focused on scaling design across our fragmented ecosystem. I worked closely with key stakeholders to define a unified brand and user experience, while the design team and I developed early proofs of concept to validate ideas and anticipate implementation challenges.
Defining a clear vision was challenging amid ongoing feature requests and real-time user feedback. Balancing short-term needs with long-term goals required constant dialogue and iteration as we pushed live updates.
Toward a Unified Platform Experience
To better support both new and returning players, we aimed to create a clearer, more cohesive user experience that could evolve alongside the game's growing complexity. This required refining the sitemap and navigation, establishing consistent brand guidelines, implementing a unified multi-brand design system, and defining shared UX patterns across teams.
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Expanding Audience Reach
As the game evolved and became more accessible, we expanded our design approach to better serve newcomers.
I participated in customer journey mapping and led design efforts around our evolving eCommerce flow:
A simplified onboarding path and pre-built game packages
A modernized store experience tailored to returning players
Promotional campaign pages featuring custom visual branding per ship or manufacturer
We achieved a balance between preserving Star Citizen’s lore-rich, immersive identity while creating a more intuitive and welcoming experience for first-time users.
