Episode 32 | February 21, 2022
Xbox user research and the future of gaming experiences
Discover how Xbox uses user research to design seamless gaming experiences across platforms with insights from Principal Research Lead Tom Lorusso.
Gaming isn't just play anymore—it's a way of life
Remember when gaming meant sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a console, waiting for your turn with the controller? Those days are long gone. Today’s gaming experience is more like a living, breathing ecosystem—one that extends beyond the screen into every corner of daily life. In a recent Insights Unlocked podcast episode, Tom Lorusso, Principal User Research Lead at Xbox, unpacks this transformation and shares how Xbox is using user research to drive gaming innovation and user-centric design at scale.
Lorusso paints a vivid picture of how modern gamers engage with content: “It's really people in the same house gaming on three different screens at the same time, or grabbing your device as you go out the door because you want to play something while you're on the sidelines of a kid's soccer game.”
In other words, gaming isn’t an activity anymore—it’s a behavior.
From consoles to ecosystems: evolving the Xbox gaming experience
Xbox is no longer just a console—it's a multi-device, multi-touchpoint ecosystem that mirrors the way we now consume other digital experiences like streaming and social media. Lorusso’s team plays a pivotal role in shaping this cross-platform gaming experience by gathering and analyzing user feedback across every step of the gaming journey—from app onboarding to in-game UX.
“The word I say the most is ecosystem.”
Lorusso shared that user research at Xbox spans games, platforms, hardware, and features like Game Pass and xCloud, all with the goal of making gaming seamless across devices. This holistic view ensures that whether a player is on a PC, phone, or console, their interaction with Xbox feels intuitive and enjoyable.
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Measuring fun: how Xbox blends metrics with empathy
User researchers often wrestle with how to prove impact. Xbox has taken an innovative route—putting “fun” on the same KPI pedestal as bug counts or load times. That’s right: fun is quantifiable, and it’s critical.
“We measure fun of games, and that is a KPI. Over the last 20 years, we've convinced the business that that should be one of their main KPIs when they're designing a game,” Lorusso explained.
Beyond fun scores, Xbox’s research team also tracks:
- Usability metrics
- Retention and churn rates
- Game Pass engagement
- Subscription behavior
- Monetization impact
The goal isn’t just to validate what works but to understand why it works—and what users really value. It’s an empathetic approach that blends qualitative insights with the rigor of quantitative analysis.
The gaming experience is everywhere
Lorusso compared the shift in gaming to the way we adapted to watching movies on phones or typing more than talking on them.
“It reminds me of an old case study about breakfast habits,” he said. “They found that people weren’t sitting around the table—they were scattered throughout the house, grabbing food and going. That really stuck with me. Because it’s not just that you game in the living room anymore.”
Just as smartphones revolutionized communication and productivity, mobile and cloud gaming are reshaping entertainment. Xbox’s strategy is to meet gamers where they are—not force them into legacy patterns.
Competing for time: gaming vs. the entire internet
Today’s games aren’t just competing against each other—they’re up against Netflix, Spotify, TikTok, and everything else vying for our attention. Lorusso is acutely aware of this.
“You’re not just competing with other games. You’re competing with all of entertainment and all other ways to spend your free time,” he said. “I could sit down and play Halo, or I could just pick up my phone and scroll through Instagram.”
To stay competitive, Xbox has embraced lean-forward engagement—interactive, social, and immersive experiences that demand more than passive attention. But they’ve also embraced lean-back behaviors like watching others stream on Twitch or YouTube, which now account for nearly half of total gaming hours.
“There’s just as many hours spent watching people play games as there are playing games.”
Building a research culture that scales
One of the standout achievements of Lorusso’s team is the development of a centralized research repository, affectionately known as HITS. It serves as a living library for UX insights and ensures that stakeholders across Xbox can access user feedback and design data on demand.
“It was a lot of work. It was not luck,” Lorusso said. “But now our stakeholders are looking at the repository first and then coming to us with questions.”
The repository helps drive:
- Shared understanding of the user
- Design consistency across teams
- Faster onboarding for new researchers
- Historical context for long-term projects
It also reinforces the importance of democratization—not in the sense of handing over research to non-researchers, but in enabling broader access to customer perspectives and insights.
Empowering product teams to connect with users
Xbox encourages a “team sport” approach to user research. Product managers, designers, and engineers are regularly invited to observe sessions, interact with users, and even conduct interviews—with guidance.
“I don’t think anybody should work at Xbox for more than a couple of months without seeing or hearing an actual user,” Lorusso emphasized.
These touchpoints build empathy, reduce silos, and elevate the role of UX in business strategy. It’s about giving everyone a window into the human side of the data.
What’s next for UX in gaming?
Looking ahead, Lorusso is excited about the potential of AI and machine learning to transform qualitative research. He imagines a future where researchers can quickly and accurately analyze thousands of survey responses and sentiment data at scale.
“I am still waiting for machine learning and AI to help us with sentiment analysis,” he said. “To let me do a survey of 10,000 people and get 10,000 pieces of qualitative feedback—without spending the next two weeks going through every single one of them.”
“You don’t need permission to do research. You can just start doing it.”
Just as Canva democratized design, the future may hold a similar revolution for UX research—one where insights are accessible, actionable, and scalable across organizations of any size.
Key takeaways from the conversation
- Gaming is everywhere: The modern gaming experience spans mobile, cloud, and console, and it’s designed to be as flexible as the user’s lifestyle.
- Fun is a KPI: Xbox uses measurable metrics to gauge enjoyment, proving that user research can and should influence product decisions.
- UX research is collaborative: Democratizing access to customer insights (not just the act of research) leads to more empathetic, informed teams.
- AI is the next frontier: As data volume increases, AI and ML tools will be critical in scaling and extracting value from qualitative feedback.
- Culture matters: Embedding research into the DNA of the organization helps ensure that every decision is grounded in human insight.
A closing thought from Tom Lorusso
If there’s one message Lorusso wants fellow UX and product leaders to remember, it’s that you don’t need a lab coat or a PhD to start making better, more human-centered decisions.
“You don’t have to connect every little thing you do to a number. Just have the confidence to say, yes, of course we’re helping. Let’s just keep doing it.”
