The problem: Two audiences who rarely share a product
Third Time was founded by Ian Cummings, former Creative Director of EA SPORTS Madden NFL, and a team behind two horse-racing hits: Photo Finish Horse Racing and Horse Racing Manager, with more than 14 million combined downloads. The studio also produced the 3D Triple Crown simulations shown during NBC Sports' Derby broadcasts.
Photo Finish LIVE was its first blockchain game. Players own NFT racehorses, enter races against other owners for real money, breed horses through a genetics system, and trade on a player-driven marketplace. Four-week seasons, aging and retirement, and racetrack staking tie those activities into one ongoing ownership experience.
I joined as VP of Experience Design and led the front-end experience for the web platform, from early content modeling and information architecture through interface design and beta iteration.
The product had to serve two audiences with very different knowledge: Web3-native players who understood wallets, tokens, and minting, and horse-racing fans who understood furlongs, silks, and past performances but might never have used a crypto wallet.
The sport had to lead and the blockchain had to recede.
Third Time's positioning, "As Real As It Gets," gave us a design principle: lead with the sport, not the technology. Horses, stables, and race entries appear in familiar racing terms, and token and transaction details stay available when players need them.
We were a five-person team building a new platform while beta players were already racing, breeding, and trading real assets.
The challenge went beyond individual screens. Ownership, race entry, results, breeding, and trading had to work together across four-week seasons. Players needed to understand their horses' long-term potential and also what to do next.
The constraints: Five people, real money, a live community
How it evolved: Start with the racing model, then learn from real use
Early work focused on content modeling and taxonomy. I defined how horses, attributes, races, results, breeding, and marketplace information related to one another, then translated those relationships into navigation and interfaces.
I organized the experience around five core surfaces: the stable, race entry, results, breeding, and marketplace. Players could move through the activities of horse ownership rather than the mechanics of a blockchain application.
That structure also had to work for different levels of expertise. Newcomers needed a clear starting point. Experienced owners needed access to detailed attributes, history, and economic information.
Information is more useful when players can act on it.
Early beta releases showed us how players actually used that structure. Behavior reporting, community conversations, and support issues guided where we added detail, adjusted presentation, or introduced more control.
What I did: Led the web experience from zero
There was no existing web product to iterate on. I owned experience design for the platform, from the underlying information structure through the visual system, collaborating directly with the full-stack developer and Chief Creative Officer.
On a team this small, leading meant doing. We favored close collaboration and working interfaces over lengthy handoffs, adjusting designs around technical constraints as we built.
Across the work, I held to one direction: sports first. Racing information led the interface, and token and staking features stayed available without defining the product's visual identity.
On a team this small, leading meant doing.
- 1 of 3Made weather information actionable: weather showed up at key race-selection points, with advanced filters so owners could narrow races around their preferred conditions
- 2 of 3Expanded economic decision support: horse valuation, marketplace discovery, pricing, stable costs and earnings, breeding costs, and transaction clarity, brought into the workflows where owners act on them
- 3 of 3Kept the experience coherent as it grew: with the Chief Creative Officer, held the interface to a racing-first direction so new ownership and economic features never turned it into a token dashboard
The outcome: Delivered a foundation, then improved its decision-making tools
During my tenure, the web platform progressed from Mint Day through public beta. My contribution included establishing the content structure and experience design across five core ownership workflows, turning player concerns about weather into contextual information and advanced race-selection filters, expanding economic information and trading controls across the ownership experience, and working directly with the full-stack developer and Chief Creative Officer to carry design decisions into the beta product.
I left Third Time in February 2023. The team launched Photo Finish LIVE worldwide on April 24, 2023.
Twelve days before launch, Churchill Downs announced a multi-year partnership making Photo Finish LIVE the official game of the Kentucky Derby. The partnership included virtual racing events and a branded presence at Churchill Downs during Derby week. NBC also aired a Third Time Derby simulation for the fifth consecutive year.
The launch added Gen 0 ticket redemption, stable and silks customization, $CROWN staking, new racetracks, and free-to-play Trainer Horses.
What it taught me: Lead with the domain. Learn through use.
- 01Lead with the sport, not the chain. The design started with how an owner thinks about horses, races, and a stable. Blockchain mechanics supported those activities rather than defining the navigation.
- 02Information is more useful when players can act on it. Weather data mattered more once it informed race selection. Economic information mattered once it supported valuation, comparison, and transactions.
- 03An early beta is a way to learn, not a substitute for judgment. Community feedback showed where players needed more information or control. Our job was to turn those signals into considered design priorities.
- 04A leadership title on a small team still means hands-on work. Leading experience design meant setting the structure and visual direction, and working through implementation details with the people building the product.