LittleBigPlanet PSP

The challenge

My first game project at Sony Computer Entertainment was designing the UX for LittleBigPlanet PSP. The core challenge was to bring the PS3 interface to a handheld with six fewer controller buttons, while retaining the richness, personality and intuitive feel of the original.

Every in-game menu flow had to be reconsidered. The experience needed to feel unmistakably like LittleBigPlanet even though many interactions now had to work in fundamentally different ways.

The PSP also introduced technical constraints. Features including Paint Mode had to be redesigned, while portable connectivity meant rethinking how Play, Create and Share could work when players moved in and out of network coverage.

Designing the system

I mapped the available actions across different contexts and worked through how complex creation functions could be mapped to the PSP controls. This meant balancing consistency with the PS3 game against the realities of a very different input device.

The resulting UI specification ran to more than 100 pages. Each use case was documented in detail, giving developers a clear description of the intended navigation, behaviour and controller mappings.

Designing for portable play

To support an online experience on a device that could frequently lose connectivity, we introduced a dedicated level-download mode alongside ad-hoc sharing. Players could download content for later and share objects they had created locally with other PSP users.

The result preserved the franchise's Play, Create and Share philosophy while adapting it to the constraints and opportunities of handheld play.

Result

LittleBigPlanet PSP successfully brought the creative depth of the franchise to a portable platform. The game went on to win a BAFTA in 2010 — an early project that established many of the principles I still value: make complexity approachable, design around the context of use, and never lose sight of play.