Rethinking the Overlay as a Control Surface

Role

Product Design Intern

Scope

Feature Design (AI Integration)

Duration

May – December 2025

Context

A new direction for AMD Software.

In the summer of 2025, I joined AMD as a Product Design Intern contributing to one of the largest redesigns AMD Software had undertaken in recent years. My focus was reworking the Overlay View, a lightweight interface that sits on top of any application, designed for quick, in-session control.

This case study covers the In-Session Overlay. The Full Application was developed in parallel by a separate workstream.

The Problem

A passive display in a product that needed action.

The overlay had been reduced to a passive metrics display. To change any setting, users had to leave what they were doing and open the full application. There was no fast path for the actions users needed most, and as the research below shows, the full application was no refuge either.

Highlights

An overlay you can finally act on.

AMD Software's overlay sits on top of any game or app, built for quick actions without breaking focus. This is a look at how I redesigned it from a passive metrics display into something users could actually do things with.

Ask anything, get a fix. Then pin it.

Describe what's wrong. The AI reads your live hardware data, surfaces a one-tap fix, and lets you pin it straight to your panel.

Your controls, your panel.

Everything you've pinned lives in one place, ready every time you open the overlay.