At Meta, I assisted in hand-tracking research and onboarding experiences that helped set the standard for controller-free VR on Quest. My time spanned gesture R&D, experience prototyping, and cross-team training while on Horizon and First Steps with Hands.

Key contributions

• Optimizations for First Steps with Hands, the controller-free onboarding that teaches pinch-to-grab, UI gestures, and natural interactions (Quest 2/Pro). Owned gesture-to-action mapping, comfort tuning, and robustness across lighting/occlusion; partnered with platform/SDK to ship the 2.0 hand-tracking pipeline.
• Prototyped and shipped gesture visuals to enhance recognizers and interaction VFX (pinch highlights, grab affordances) so intent is instantly legible; paired engine changes with UX research loops to raise first-time success and cut onboarding drop-off.
• Designed scripting-in-VR sessions so designers could iterate in-headset without heavy engine overhead, accelerating experimentation for Horizon, and Facebook research lab.
• Collaborated with engineering on perf and stability: reduced headset latency, improved hand pose interpolation, stress-tested edge cases (fast motion, overlapping hands), and validated comfort for long sessions.
• Delivered internal training on how to debugg Horizon mini games in VR to ensure the content was smooth for each first time user.

Outcomes and reception

• Launched First Steps with Hands across Quest 2/Pro as the canonical hand-tracking tutorial for new users.
• Featured on Meta’s Horizon/Quest channels; community and press praised the natural feel and accessibility. Documented mitigations for known limits (very fast motion, low light, full overlap) to guide adopting teams.

Project Pages

• Blog with team findings
• First Steps with Hands on Quest Store DB
• First Steps with Hands on Meta Quest Store