FitXR Season
FitXR is the leading VR fitness app on Meta Quest, but we were hitting a ceiling. Despite releasing new classes every week, our Daily Active Users (DAU) were stagnating, and subscriber growth had plateaued. We needed a "sticky" feature to unlock the next level of growth. To address this, we partnered with Meta for a massive "Season" release; a holistic ecosystem update featuring a new monthly theme, overhauled multiplayer, and viral growth loops. My role was to define the product design strategy and execute the end-to-end design for this ecosystem, ensuring it could scale globally without breaking our production pipeline.
Role:
Product Designer
Responsibilities:
Problem Discovery, Product Strategy, User Research, UI & UX Design
Why did we need a Season release?
According to user feedback, the app felt repetitive. Users loved the workouts, but they lacked a long-term reason to come back every single day. We needed a narrative hook.
"I love the classes, but it feels like the same thing every day."
"I wish there was a story or a reason to progress beyond just burning calories."
"My friends aren't on when I am, so I end up working out alone."
There were 3 fundamental goals we needed to hit:
Create a sustainable content engine
We needed a way to deliver fresh, themed content monthly without burning out the team. The existing strategy required the content team to produce new classes every week which put a lot of burden to them.
Break the social isolation
VR shouldn't be lonely. To move from "working out alone" to "working out together," we had to remove the friction of our old multiplayer system, which barred anyone without a direct session code from joining in.
Unlock organic growth
While our user base was highly loyal, there was significant friction preventing them from bringing their social circles into the app. Streamlining these invites turns every workout into a referral opportunity, lowering our acquisition costs while increasing user retention.
Caught in the middle: Art vs. Product & Engineering
Before diving into the solution, I want to highlight the massive internal tension I faced. This project was a high-stakes battle between immersion and viability.
The Art team envisioned a deep, cinematic experience with 3D story cards, trophies, and interactive artifacts for every season. The Engineering and Product team, however, flagged that building bespoke 3D assets every month would blow our time and budget.
I was caught in the middle. As the designer leading the product design strategy, I had to mediate this conflict. I couldn't just pick a side; I had to find a third way. I realised we didn't need "more 3D", we needed smarter immersion. I championed a strategy whereby the Season will be embedded as part of the main UI. I gave the team three options and we agreed to go with Option 1 where Season will be part of the main UI.
The strategic pivot to 2D
I prototyped a solution that embedded high-quality 2D UI assets directly into our existing 3D environment. By using a "build once, use forever" UI framework, we could swap themes (backgrounds, text, rewards) via an internal CMS without writing new code. This satisfied Art's need for narrative depth and Engineering and Product's need for performance.
Rapid alignment
To prove this would work, I ran regular workshops and built live prototypes to show leadership that a 2D-led Season could still feel premium and achieve an immersive story. This alignment was the turning point that saved the project timeline.
Now, let’s dive deeper into the key pillars of the release.
Issue 1: The content treadmill
The biggest risk was creating a feature that was too hard to maintain. If the Season required custom code every month, we would fail.
The "build once, use forever" system
I designed a modular Season page that acted as a chameleon. The layout remained static, but the "skin"; the background art, the text, and the reward icons, could be hot-swapped instantly.
Early concepts of Season page. I explored different ways to communicate theme and progress.
For the user, every month felt like a brand-new app. For the dev team, it was the exact same code running underneath. This system allowed the Content team to run the show without needing constant design intervention.
We structured the Season as a themed, three-month guided fitness challenge hosted in "The Deck," a new futuristic training environment. The first theme rotated through three unique environments: Monorail, Glacier, and Helios Crest, changing every month to keep the visual experience fresh. We also introduced new moves (Sidestep, Crouch, Jump) to add variety to the workouts themselves.
To build consistent habits, users were tasked with completing 2 daily challenges every day to earn monthly rewards, unlocking exclusive cosmetic items and workouts.
Season page with three different themes for each month: Monorail, Glacier, and Helios Crest.
To replace the expensive 3D trophies for these rewards, I designed an immersive Reward Unlock moment. When a user completes the daily challenges and reach a certain milestone, they get a premium, animated "dopamine hit" sequence. It felt tangible and rewarding, proving we didn't need complex 3D models to make users feel good.
As part of the holistic Season release, we also launched new league rankings and the ability to create workout playlists, features designed to foster community and help users better track their progress.
Season theme on the Home page with the addition of daily challenges, progress, and league table.
Issue 2: The lonely VR experience
Data showed that our private multiplayer rooms were a ghost town. Users wanted to work out with others, but coordinating schedules with specific friends was too hard.
Moving to public multiplayer
I completely redesigned the multiplayer architecture to prioritise public rooms. Now, instead of waiting for a friend invite, users could instantly jump into a class with strangers.
This solved the "empty room" problem overnight. It created a sense of "social liquidity", there was always someone to play with, making the app feel alive and buzzing with activity.
The new Multiplayer flow.
The new UI makes connecting easier than ever with a revamped invite page and public room access. I’ve also merged the player list with the leaderboard, providing a unified view of participant stats and total session points.
Issue 3: The growth wall
We had great retention for core users, but acquiring new ones was expensive. We needed our users to do the marketing for us.
The guest pass & pricing redesign
I designed a frictionless Guest Pass mechanic that allowed subscribers to gift free trials to friends. This turned every user into a potential promoter.
Guest Pass flow can easily be accessed from the home page. There is animation when the banner is shown on the bottom right.
To ensure those friends actually subscribed, I overhauled the Pricing screen. The old version was cluttered and confusing. I simplified the value proposition, using clear comparison charts and removing decision paralysis.
To tie it all together, I worked directly with Meta to align our in-app visuals with a featured Quest Store campaign, creating a seamless funnel from the store page right into the app.
As part of a strategic partnership with Meta, I designed the promotional assets featured in the Horizon Feed, driving app visibility and acquisition through the platform.
Business impact & user feedback
The Season Release was a turning point for FitXR. It wasn't just a feature launch; it was a business transformation.
Active Users increased: The combination of fresh content and public multiplayer drove a massive increase in daily active users.Active days per week.
Profitability reached: The Guest Pass loop and optimized pricing helped us hit a record number of Premium Subscribers, pushing the company to profitability.
Operational efficiency: The new design system cut design/dev time for monthly updates to almost zero, freeing us up to work on the next big thing.
Users also felt the difference immediately:
"Finally feels like a community! jumping into a public room is so easy."
"The new season themes keep it fresh. I actually want to log in to see what's next."
"I got my friends to join with the guest pass, and now we workout together every Tuesday."
This project proved that you don't always need the most expensive technology to solve a user problem, you just need the right strategy.