Designing Music and Media Controls Around PS5 Game Play
Music and media on PS5 needed to fit naturally into a gaming session. The experience connected finding music, controlling playback in-game, and adjusting sound for a headset or living-room setup, while keeping the focus on play.
Sony Interactive Entertainment / PlayStation
UX Manager and program leader within the player-experience domain
Music and media entry, browsing, playback controls, and sound settings
PS5, with controller-led interaction on a television
Design leadership and support for designers working across connected, media, and companion music-player experiences
The experience changed when the game became the priority
A console is both a place to choose entertainment and a device someone may already be using to play. Those situations create different demands. Browsing a library calls for enough content and context to make a choice. Changing a track during play calls for a much smaller interruption.
Sound introduces another layer. A player may be listening through television speakers, a sound system, or compatible headphones. Choosing what to hear, controlling playback, and configuring the device are related activities, but they do not need the same interface.
My role sat within design leadership across that broader player-experience space. I managed and developed designers whose specialties included streaming and companion music-player experiences. The narrative here follows the shared product experience across its entry points, player, and settings, rather than presenting it as a single-screen redesign.
Give browsing enough room to support a choice
Media Home provides an entry to entertainment apps, including supported music services. Once a service is available, a player can also reach music through Control Center. The design problem is to make discovery understandable without treating every visit as a first-time setup.
The reference screens show different browsing needs: returning to familiar music, moving through playlists, and examining a track or collection. Artwork helps identify content at a distance, while titles, selection states, and a consistent list structure make the controller-driven path understandable.
The landing hierarchy needs to support both exploration and getting something playing. Someone browsing needs alternatives and a clear selection state; someone returning to familiar music needs an understandable path to playback. The page should give the choice enough context without making every visit require the same depth of browsing.
Keep the player useful alongside gameplay
After a selection starts playing, the job changes. The Now Playing card makes the current selection and playback actions available through Control Center. It gives the player a place to pause or continue listening without navigating back through the full service experience.
Once music is playing, routine controls need a clearer priority than secondary options. Track identity, playback state, and the immediate actions should be easy to recognize; additional functionality should not compete with them. Album artwork and track information connect the player to the selection that came before it.
The supplied examples show how a compact music surface can sit over gameplay while leaving the game visible. That relationship is central to the experience: the music controls need to be understandable in their own right without demanding the attention of a full entertainment app.
Separate a quick adjustment from a setup decision
During play, a sound change may be as small as adjusting volume or choosing an output device. A frequently used adjustment needs to be close at hand, while an occasional setup decision can take more space in Sound settings. The aim is predictable placement: simple corrections should stay small, and deeper choices should have room for explanation.
Device context matters. A television, an AV system, and compatible headphones expose different options. The interface needs to communicate where sound is going before asking someone to interpret more detailed configuration choices.
The supplied settings references make that distinction visible through output-device controls and dedicated setup screens. They also provide a useful boundary for the story: music playback is part of a wider listening environment, rather than an isolated player that ends at the pause button.
Make sound adjustments something players can evaluate
For compatible headsets, the equalizer offers presets, frequency controls, and an audio preview. These controls turn a sound preference into an adjustment someone can hear, rather than ask them to infer the result from a slider alone.
Other setup surfaces address the room or the listener. Speaker-position controls use a spatial diagram, while headphone 3D-audio setup provides listening-based choices. These are different tasks, so the page should show them as separate examples rather than combine them into a single tuning screen.
The common interaction principle is feedback: the person needs a meaningful connection between the control they change and the listening experience they are evaluating. That is especially important when the result is heard rather than seen.
A connected experience across different levels of attention
The product experience connects a broad browsing surface, a focused player, quick sound controls, and deeper setup. Each serves a different moment while keeping the activity recognizable as listening on the same console.
My contribution belongs to the design leadership supporting that broader player-experience work and the designers developing expertise within it. The visible product surfaces show the interaction approach; they do not establish a measured improvement in discovery, engagement, or task time. The story’s value is the connection between content, controls, and the gaming context in which people use them.