Thread by @dylanmeade

We shipped a new player experience feature with the 2010 #Xbox console build today - it's called "Flash Card" and lets you browse and install content from Game Pass and your existing library of owned content. Here's a thread on how we built it:

I am a PM on the Game Pass team at Xbox, and I (primarily) work on engagement and acquisition features for the membership. In late 2019, we took a look at the browse experience for Game Pass members on console and noticed a few things:

1. It wasn't always clear what was and was not included in the membership
2. We weren't exposing the content our members wanted to see when deciding what to play next (actual gameplay, screenshots, etc)
3. Our current "install" dialog didn't meet our vision

To start, we did a lot of customer research to understand what ppl want to see when they're browsing for something new to play. Surveys, customer empathy conversations, etc.

After we got all that data back, we started to iterate on the fundamentals. We landed on some key pillars: performance, availability, browsability, and flexibility.

Perf: this thing needed to be fast. No context switching. We aimed for sub 100ms from click to player interaction.

Availability: while we originally thought about this for Game Pass, it became clear that this was something that should be accessible from anywhere on the console.

Browsability: No lengthy product docs, no frivolous info. Only preview content for what you need with links off to deeper experiences if you want to know more.

Flexibility: Game Pass has grown immensely in the past year, and we needed to make sure that this new surface could keep up with our ambitions. Focus on modularity, extensibility, and ability to experiment.

With all that set - we got to actually designing the thing. We landed on a modal overlay so that the player never lost track of their initial context. The center stage is modular so we can add/remove content over time as our needs change.

It scrolls so that we can fit more information when needed. This bit was a little contentious... For something focused on "flash" browsing, why does it need to show so much content? Isn't that against the principle?

Ultimately, what we show in the first few modules ends up being most important. The things off screen are helpful, but easily skippable and don't really affect perf. We landed on a sweet spot where there are always 3-4 modules on screen.

Now, the building. It took a long time. We have lots of different teams that needed to sign-off on this thing and help build it. We also had to balance it against all the other commitments we had for Scarlett launch.

We also refined the plan over time. Flash Card is complex and has to meet the needs of every single game on the system... so there was a lot of planning. What you see there is also contextual to you as the player.

If you have Game Pass, we show you subscription badging and an option to add that title to your Play Later list. If it's a game you own, we ditch that. It adapts to you.

For the v1, we wanted to make sure we got the basics. Since it's modular, we can add more over time and focus on iteration. At launch, we have box art, description, trailer, screenshots, bundle content preview, edition picker, share to friend, official club, and more.

I can't stress enough how awesome it was to work with our engineers on this. The passion and ingenuity they showed during this process led to a much better product than what I initially jotted down my first day on the team.

Here are some more pics of Flash Card in various states, and you can go use it today (or when you get the 2010 update😊)