Enter the CoralSphere,
a Digital-Meets-Physical Experience
Showcasing Dell's Sustainability Efforts,
Engaging Audiences through Participation.
Enter the CoralSphere,
a Digital-Meets-Physical Experience
Showcasing Dell's Sustainability Efforts,
Engaging Audiences through Participation.
About Project
This is a 1-month project designing for DELL's 2024 SXSW marketing showcase, featuring DELL 'Welcome to Now' event, collaborated with DELL's marketing team. The goal is to create an memorable in-person experience that showcases how DELL’s technology is bringing positive impact to the world we love, as well as growing DELL’s brand perception.
My Role
Participate in Creative Ideas Brainstorm
Design User Flow and Storyboard
Lead UXUI Design and Mobile Website Prototyping
Stakeholder User Testing & Iterations
Achievements
Delivered a project presentation and host a prototype demo session with DELL's marketing associates. Our work was honorably mentioned and received high praise for its engaging story-telling and user experience.
TEAM
1 Creative Director
2 UXUI Designers
1 Multi-media Designer
1 Developer
CLIENT
DELL
DURATION
1 month (4 weeks)
TOOLS
Figma
Adobe Illustration
Midjourney
8th Wall
X
Go to Final Design
Understanding Business & Audience
Understanding Business & Audience
We began by understanding Dell's business goals and the SXSW audience, an essential step in shaping the project's theme and identifying which aspects of Dell to highlight.
BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
Grow DELL’s Brand Perception among the community.
Showcase Positive Impacts that DELL’s technology brings to the world.
Drive Optimism around DELL's Long-Term Technology Opportunities.
ABOUT AUDIENCE
62% of SXSW audience falls within the 26-45 age range.
72% of SXSW audience come to discover new business opportunities.
2/3 of young investors pay more for sustainable products.
- Nasdaq survey, 2022
THE AUDIENCE
The SXSW audience, with 62% early-to-mid career professionals, attends SXSW largely to explore new business opportunities, demonstrating a strong preference for companies committed to sustainability.
PROJECT FOCUS
We decided to highlight DELL’s latest projects - Data-Driven Reef Conservation With AI, bringing significant impacts on ocean preservation.
In this project, DELL developed a deep learning AI model as part of a partnership with Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef.
62% of SXSW audience falls within the 26-45 age range.
2/3 of young millennial investors have exposure to ESG investments and pay more for sustainable product.
72% of SXSW audience come to discover new opportunities.
Driven from data, we decided to explore DELL’s latest technology contribution in sustainability aspect.
Besides Business, What's More for Audience?
After our main idea being finalized, we proposed initial ideas and had intense discussions with DELL in 2 weeks.
We reached following consensus for both audience and business:
AUDIENCE
Audience should be able to participate and feel a sense of making meaningful impacts.
Audience should be able to resonates with the Importance of ocean preservation.
Integrate Dell's technology, e.g. Deep learning AI into the experience.
Show Dell's effort and contribution to ocean preservation.
BUSINESS
DEFINE GOAL
How might we design an immersive onsite experience that highlights Dell's technology and sustainability efforts while inspiring emotional connection with the importance of ocean preservation and feel empowered to contribute?
How we build Emotional Connection and Immersion?
-Start with Telling a Story
How we build Emotional Connection and Immersion?
-Start with Telling a Story
Everyday
DELL is trying to help the ocean and corals with its technology.
Until one day
YOU and more people join the journey to enter the ocean.
Because of that
YOU start to learn about DELL’s technology and its everyday impact on ocean preservation.
Because of that
YOU and people create virtual corals of yours through DELL AI technology.
Finally
ALL OF YOUR corals are realized and planted to ocean to bring real impacts on sustainability.
Once upon a time
The coral reef ecosystem is weakening due to various factors.
Because of that
YOU and people create virtual corals of yours through DELL AI technology.
Because of that
YOU start to learn about DELL’s technology and its everyday impact on ocean preservation.
Until one day
YOU and more people join the journey to enter the ocean.
Everyday
DELL is trying to help the ocean and corals with its technology.
Once upon a time
The coral reef ecosystem is weakening due to various factors.
Finally
ALL OF YOUR corals are realized and planted to ocean to bring real impacts on sustainability.
From Story to Experience
Driven from our story, we brainstormed ideas and came up with the experience - ‘Enter the CoralSphere’.
We visualized our experience through user flow and storyboard for better presentation to DELL, also for keeping the team on the same page for future design plan.
How we Fit these in the Space?
We brainstormed ideas on how to organize different elements into the space, aiming for a seamless flow and cohesive experience.
Now that we have 2 weeks left …
How Might We Validate Ideas and Visuals ASAP?
Let's Make Prototype REAL ENOUGH for Real Feedback!
Considering the importance of visualization in branding campaign, also to validate the design at early stage, I led the team to conduct rapid-prototyping, making the prototypes real enough for the stakeholders to interact with, in order to gain genuine reactions and feedback for next round of iteration.
Define Visuals
Design Hi-Fi Prototypes
Internal Testing with Dell
Present to Stakeholders
During Testing with the Stakeholder from Dell,
What did we Change? and WHY?
In AI personalized quiz, what if users put inappropriate answers, generating unintended results?
Approach
Balance between error prevention and variety.
Before
Users can enter whatever they want. After discussion with DELL, we want to prevent users from entering inappropriate words.
After
We changed open-ended questions into multiple-choice questions.
After
To ensure uniqueness, we added a section prior to the questions for users to enter their name.
DELL wants users to expose to other projects beyond sustainability aspect.
Approach
Add a section in the last part of mobile experience, encouraging future exploration.
Consider Real Scenarios into Creating Prototypes.
Scenario
AI Generation takes time. Add frames with fun facts for loading animation.
After
Add more frames to accommodate with the time AI generation needed.
After
Fun Facts Feature during loading time for more immersive and engaging experience.
Final Experience
We conceptualized a tunnel surrounded by ocean-vibe environments. There will be an arrow composited by a school of fish that points to the QR code to start the mobile experience.
Mobile Experience.
Users will be directed to scan the QR code at the entrance, a tunnel with an arrow gathered by fish.
Users will be introduced to DELL's story in ocean preservation.
After the onboarding, users will be onboarded to 'The Coralsphere'.
Personalize Your Coral.
Audience will answer a series of questions to generate their personalized coral. Through narrative questions and vivid options, we want audience to feel immersed and thereby feel the importance of DELL’s effort for ocean preservation.
Offboarding.
Inform audience about next steps - adopting coral.
Ask users to leave personal info for sending follow-up email and certification for coral adoption.
Finally, encourage users to explore the rest of the space!
The CoralSphere.
We conceptualized the main space as an interactive ocean environment with DELL's E-shaped tank sit in the heart of the space.
What's After?
Track Your Coral in Real Ocean.
After event, each personalized coral will be 3D printed and placed in the real ocean, bringing positive impact to existing coral reef.
We designed a gamified app for users to track their coral in real time.
Onboarding
Greeting from Your Coral.
Coral Profile
Learn about Your Coral.
Reat-time Statistic
See How Your Coral Live.
Next Steps
Next Steps
Do Playtest with Users to Ensure Cohesive Experience
Do Playtest with Users to Ensure Cohesive Experience
Having physical and digital touchpoints along the experience, it's necessary to conduct playtest within the space to ensure a seamless and cohesive experience. If have more time and resources, I will invite people from DELL (to not spoil the experience to the public) to join the playtest. During the playtest, personnel will be observing the users to collect how users interact with the space, and what potential problems exist throughout the experience. Afterwards, we will collect user feedback through post-survey.
Having physical and digital touchpoints along the experience, it's necessary to conduct playtest within the space to ensure a seamless and cohesive experience. If have more time and resources, I will invite people from DELL to join the playtest. We will collect feedbacks via observing the playtest and post-survey.
My Learning
Finalize Style Guide before Rapid Prototyping
I found it important to establish style guide before rapid-prototyping. Since we have two designers working on the same prototype, with the style guide, we are able to keep our design and visualization consistent to make sure cohesive branding.
Business Requests Play Key Role in Branding Campaign
In this project, we have intense discussion with DELL's marketing representative. I learn to consider business side when designing. For example, when mentioning the mission or work associated with other brands, we need to let users recognize the collaboration by incorporating other brands but not losing focus on DELL.
Final Experience
Enter the CoralSphere.
We conceptualized a tunnel surrounded by ocean-vibe environments. There will be an arrow composited by a school of fish that points to the QR code to start the mobile experience.
Users will be directed to scan the QR code at the entrance, a tunnel with an arrow gathered by fish.
Users will be introduced to DELL's story in ocean preservation.
After the onboarding, users will be onboarded to 'The Coralsphere'.
Mobile Experience.
Audience will answer a series of questions to generate their personalized AI-generated coral. Through narrative questions and vivid options, we want audience to feel immersed and thereby feel the importance of DELL’s effort for ocean preservation.
Personalize Your Coral
Offboarding.
Inform audience about next steps - adopting coral.
Ask users to leave personal info for sending follow-up email and certification for coral adoption.
Finally, encourage users to explore the rest of the space!
Onboarding
Greeting from Your Coral.
The CoralSphere.
We conceptualized the main space as an interactive ocean environment with DELL's E-shaped tank sit in the heart of the space.
What's After?
Track Your Coral in Real Ocean.
After event, each personalized coral will be 3D printed and placed in the real ocean, bringing positive impact to existing coral reef.
We designed a gamified app for users to track their coral in real time.
Coral Profile
Learn about Your Coral.
Reat-time Statistic
See How Your Coral Live.
Now that we have 2 weeks left …
How Might We Validate Design and Visuals ASAP?
Rapid-Prototyping for
Real Feedback!
To validate our design in early stage, I led the team to conduct rapid-prototyping, making the high-fidelity prototypes real enough to interact with, so that the stakeholders can provide genuine reactions and feedback for next round of iteration.
Define Visuals
Design Hi-Fi Prototypes
Internal Testing
Stakeholder Testing
What did we Change? WHY?
In AI personalized quiz, what if users put inappropriate answers, generating unintended results?
Before
Users can enter whatever they want. After discussion with DELL, we want to prevent users from entering inappropriate words.
After
We changed open-ended questions into multiple-choice questions.
After
To ensure uniqueness, we added a section prior to the questions for users to enter their name.
Approach
Balance between error prevention and variety.
DELL wants users to expose to other projects beyond sustainability aspect.
Approach
Add a section in the last part of mobile experience, encouraging future exploration.
Consider Real Scenarios into Creating Prototypes.
Scenario
AI Generation takes time. Add frames with fun facts for loading animation.
After
Fun Facts Feature during loading time for more immersive and engaging experience.
After
Add more frames to accommodate with the time AI generation needed.
How we Fit these in the Space?
We brainstormed ideas on how to organize different elements into the space, aiming for a seamless flow and cohesive experience.
From Story to Experience
Driven from our story, we brainstormed ideas and came up with the experience - ‘Enter the CoralSphere’.
We visualized our experience through user flow and storyboard for better presentation to DELL, also for keeping the team on the same page for future design plan.
What are DELL’s Goals?
We identified main business objectives from the client brief provided by DELL, as well as the stakeholder interviews.
Positive Impact DELL’s technology bring to the world.
Drive Optimism around DELL’s Long-term Technology Opportunities.
Grow DELL’s Brand Perception amongst the community
Who are SXSW Audience?
We did audience research based on past SXSW Demographic Report.
62% of SXSW audience falls within the 26-45 age range.
2/3 of young millennial investors have exposure to ESG investments and pay more for sustainable product.
72% of SXSW audience come to discover new opportunities.
THE AUDIENCE
The SXSW audience, with 62% early-to-mid career professionals, attends SXSW largely to explore new business opportunities, demonstrating a strong preference for companies committed to sustainability.
PROJECT FOCUS
We decided to highlight DELL’s latest projects - Data-Driven Reef Conservation With AI, bringing significant impacts on ocean preservation.
In this project, DELL developed a deep learning AI model as part of a partnership with Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef.
Besides Business, What's More for Audience?
After our main idea being approved, we had intense discussions with DELL in 2 weeks.
We reached following consensus for both audience and business:
Audience should be able to participate and feel a sense of making meaningful impacts.
Audience should be able to resonates with the Importance of ocean preservation.
AUDIENCE
Integrate Dell's technology, e.g. Deep learning AI into the experience.
Show Dell's effort and contribution to ocean preservation.
BUSINESS
DEFINE GOAL
How might we design an immersive onsite experience that highlights Dell's technology and sustainability efforts while inspiring emotional connection with the importance of ocean preservation and feel empowered to contribute?
DEFINE GOAL
How might we design an immersive onsite experience that highlights Dell's technology and sustainability efforts while inspiring emotional connection with the importance of ocean preservation and feel empowered to contribute?
My Learning
Finalize Style Guide before Rapid Prototyping
I found it important to establish style guide before rapid-prototyping. Since we have two designers working on the same prototype, with the style guide, we are able to keep our design and visualization consistent to make sure cohesive branding.
Business Requests Play Key Role in Branding Campaign
I learn to consider business side when designing. For example, when mentioning the mission or work associated with other brands, we need to let users recognize the collaboration by incorporating other brands but not losing focus on DELL.
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