Edmonton's newest VR game park had no photos, no reviews and no bookings yet. We designed the product strategy, UX, UI and front end that had to win trust before the doors opened.
Free-roam VR is new to most of Edmonton. The site had to explain five very different experiences, reassure parents and HR managers, and turn curiosity into a waitlist, all before launch day.
No venue photos, no reviews and online booking switched off until opening. Every usual trust signal was missing.
Lead with the feeling, then remove every doubt: real product renders, honest pricing, a four-step visit story and answers placed exactly where questions appear.
A 13-page product with experience pages, group packages, gift card commerce and a waitlist, built so booking switches on the day the doors open.
Each phase ended with a decision the client signed off, so design never ran ahead of strategy and the build never ran ahead of design.
Understand the venue, the offer and the city.
Agree what the site must achieve.
Shape the paths people take.
From grey boxes to cinema.
Code that matches the design.
Go live in two phases.
Before any pixels: what problem are we solving, for whom, and what must ship first.
People in Edmonton can't picture what free-roam VR feels like, and parents, friends and HR managers each need a different reason to trust a venue that hasn't opened yet.
Show what each experience is like before anyone has tried one.
Turn curiosity from social into a list the venue owns.
Parties and corporate groups bring the largest orders.
Reduce the questions staff answer by phone and DM.
How might we let someone feel a VR ride through a phone screen?
How might we make a parent feel safe booking for their kids?
How might we make a 40-person team event feel easy to plan?
Scope was cut by one question: does this help someone trust us or book us before opening? Everything else waited.
Who is visiting, what they're worried about, and the shortest honest path from curious to booked.
Is it safe for my kids, and what will it actually cost?
What will it actually feel like? Will I look silly?
Can it handle my whole team properly, and invoice us?
Proto-personas built with the client from stakeholder sessions and the questions their team expected to hear most. They will be validated with real guest feedback after opening.
We mapped the first-timer's path from a Reel to a booking. The dip is the moment people leave, so that's where the strongest design answers sit.
Fourteen pages grouped by intent: explore, plan a group, or give a gift. Each page has exactly one primary action.
Flows were drawn before screens so every page knew where it sat in a journey and what came next. Choose a flow.
Pre-launch branch: when booking is closed, "Book" becomes Get First Access, so the same flow captures the lead instead of hitting a dead end.
The HR organiser never has to email to ask what's included. Capacity, AV, branding and invoicing are visible before the enquiry.
Gift cards earn revenue before opening, so this flow is fully live in phase one.
Layout, hierarchy and calls to action were agreed in low fidelity, so visual design could focus on feeling. Drag to compare the wireframe with the final screen.
A dark stage, one electric blue and a gradient saved for the moments that matter. Everything below is live: hover, click and type.
The client's brief in three words, carried through every page of the live site, so it looks like the experience, not like a template.
Near-black lets the art glow. Blue is reserved for actions, so the eye always knows where to click. Click a swatch to copy its value.
Clash Display brings the game-title energy. Inter keeps prices, rules and FAQs effortless to read on a small screen.
Content sits in a 1152px container. Sections breathe on 96px, cards on 24px. Toggle the grid to see it.
Every component has default, hover, pressed, focus and disabled states, and each micro-interaction tells the user something happened.
Lift and glow on hover, squash on press. Disabled reads as "not yet", not "broken".
The knob slides rather than snaps, so the switch feels physical.
Non-matching worlds fade back rather than vanish, so the layout never jumps.
Focus ring, a gentle shake on error and an inline green confirm. No page reload. Demo only.
A soft 3D tilt and a light that follows the cursor make the card feel like an object you can pick up.
Dark interfaces fail quietly when grey text gets too dim. Every text colour was checked against the page background with WCAG 2.2.
Scroll through the homepage. Each section answers the next question a first-time visitor has.
Character art bursting out of a light card on a black stage. The headline says where, what and why in one line.
With no venue photos yet, 3D renders of each ride carry the visuals and set honest expectations.
"Book, show up, play" turns an unknown visit into four simple steps.
Solo combos, parties and corporate sit in three tabs, each with its own image, promise and action.
"Join the Fleet" gets the strongest gradient on the page and asks for just one field.
One template, five worlds. Drag to browse.
The details that do the converting, up close.
Games, gift cards, events, FAQ, blog, about and contact, all built from the same tokens and components.
Recorded on the live site. Each one has a trigger, a response and a reason to exist.
Most visitors arrive from Instagram and TikTok, so every page was designed mobile-first, with thumb-reach actions and type that reads at arm's length.
The site is live and taking waitlist sign-ups and gift card orders. Booking switches on at opening with no redesign needed.
A few other projects we've designed and built.
Social media campaigns for a graphic T-shirt and tote bag label: offer stories, limited-edition drops and customer reviews.
Brand identity for a fashion label for millennials: a radio-wave asterisk mark, black and orange, apparel and retail.
Brand principles, learner personas, a design system and the student dashboard for India’s largest online learning programme.
