Enterprise Design Thinking by IBM
Company IBM
Introduction Date September 28, 2017
Project Website https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Today's business leaders are beginning to see design thinking as a way to solve their complex problems. Others still consider it "vapid," "a failed experiment" or worse (just Google it), but our aim with this application is to demonstrate that those assertions couldn't be further from the truth and that, in fact, it's the key to changing the way enterprise employees around the world work. And we've got the proof: design thinking helps teams go to market twice as fast, save 33% in development time, and achieve a 301% return on investment. (Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study, 2018.) At IBM, we practice Enterprise Design Thinking to align our teams and deliver better products and services for our users. You may have noticed the addition of "Enterprise"—a word we use intentionally. Through our own work, we learned that commonly understood design thinking practices fall apart as teams become bigger and more distributed. To combat this, we created a specific version of design thinking that helps teams stay aligned and move at the speed and scale modern digital enterprises demand. But the framework itself isn't the focus of this application. IBM's design transformation began roughly five years ago, with Enterprise Design Thinking at its core. We spent countless hours training tens of thousands of employees how to practice design thinking to solve problems for their users. What we quickly learned, however, is that high-touch training alone does not equal adoption. Instead, teams need ongoing guidance and support in order to truly change the way they work. We recently launched—and continue to deliver on—Enterprise Design Thinking by IBM, a platform to help teams adopt and scale the practice of design thinking in their organizations. The platform was a direct response to the increasing needs of enterprise learners, the business, and the market. We all know employees are less engaged and teams struggle with alignment. We've also witnessed firsthand that business leaders—while they want to invest in design and design thinking—often don't know how to get started. Our platform— designed for enterprise learners at all levels—combines practice with business strategy to help teams continuously deliver market-winning experiences to their users. Because after all, "the last best experience that anyone has anywhere becomes the minimum expectation for the experience they want everywhere." (Bridget van Kranlingen, IBM)
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Our approach for the Enterprise Design Thinking by IBM platform was to create a set of experiences that mix in-person accelerators, online education, support materials, and skill measurement throughout any learner's journey. When used individually, each of these help train people. When combined, they spread adoption and accelerate our journey toward creating a sustainable culture of design and design thinking. In-Person Accelerators Imagine learning how to cook a new pasta dish from a YouTube video. Now imagine how your experience would be different if your Italian grandmother taught you. Which one would be easier? More customized? In-person learning experiences are hard to beat; interaction with peers and experts exponentially speeds up learning and the adoption of new skills. At IBM, we've created three opportunities for continued development: local communities of practice to encourage peer-to-peer development, one-day accelerator trainings to help leaders identify strategic initiatives and enable their teams to succeed with design thinking, and project-based consulting for our clients and partners. Online Learning The problem with learning from your grandmother, however, is that at some point the experience ends. You've completed the dish. We found that in-person accelerators, while a great way to practice and learn from experts, didn't provide the ongoing support teams needed to make design thinking stick. Our online learning helps scale the practice through two levels of digital learning content. Level one provides an introduction to IBM’s unique flavor of design thinking, and level two focuses on applied learning through project-based practice. Learners can also access a library of tools, activities, and support materials to help transition from online learning to daily practice. Consider these the recipe cards your grandmother wrote by hand. A System of Measurement When learning any new skill, everyone starts as a beginner. Some people can barely boil pasta, while others can whip up a bolognese on a weeknight. Within a business context, enterprise learners need a clear understanding of the design thinking learning journey, and to communicate their own proficiency at any time. Similarly, business leaders need to measure the mix of proficiency within their teams and make strategic decisions about how to staff projects or where to invest. To meet these needs and provide an extra layer of rigor to design thinking, we designed a system of five Enterprise Design Thinking badges. These five badges directly map to the five types of design thinkers that teams need to win in the 21st century. The Outcomes People often ask whether our approach is working. The answer, simply, is yes. IBM now employs over 1,600 designers, making us the largest corporate design workforce in the world. Those designers are delivering on complex problems across even more complex industries like healthcare, finance, and education. But they don't do it alone—instead, they have whole teams to support them. Whole teams who value working in this new, human-centered way. IBM is proud to be a leader in this: Today, we have 120,000 Enterprise Design Thinkers and that number—and their outcomes—grows every day.
Who worked on the project?
Joni Saylor, Eleanor Bartosh, Jordan Shade, Collin Vaughn, David Avila, Dave Huber, Rob Williams, Matt Brothers, Rafa Nogueras, Ricardo Henriquez, Maranda Bodas, Amanda Booth, Ann Novelli, Sean Pizel, Josh Troyer, Chris Hammond, Alex Bentley, Jason Collier, Clint Barth, Kelly Churchill, Miroslav Azis.
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/268846259
Hello Quantum: App Game
Why is this project worthy of an award?
At the intersection of science, technology, and design, IBM Research presents Hello Quantum – the first combination puzzle game designed to teach introductory principles of quantum computing. Created in collaboration with Dr. James Wootton, a quantum computation researcher at the University of Basel, Hello Quantum provides users without any background knowledge about quantum physics or coding to learn about quantum fundamentals through fun, interactive puzzles. Quantum computers are incredibly powerful machines that take a new approach to processing information using the principles of quantum mechanics. The computers we use today are known as classical computers. They have enabled amazing things and become ubiquitous in our lives. There are, however, still problems they can't solve. These problems generally involve exponential scaling such as large-scale optimization or chemistry simulations. Quantum computers are being built to work with classical computers to potentially solve these problems. Quantum computers are rapidly emerging. Pursued for decades in research labs, prototype machines are today getting bigger and more capable. Yet the technology is not generally understood. The concepts and vocabulary are foreign to most, and access to the machines has largely rested with the scientific community. Industries are just starting to explore the possibilities and universities are beginning to develop quantum computing curriculum. Hello Quantum is the first app game designed to explain complex concepts of quantum mechanics through interactive puzzles. Just by solving a puzzle – without realizing it – users create quantum circuits that could in fact be run on real quantum devices. The game is designed to train users in how quantum computers work. We hope that Hello Quantum will inspire those new to quantum (as well as quantum experts!) to have some fun and learn more about quantum computing. Over the next five years there will be an explosion in general public knowledge about quantum computing, which will help to initiate the dawn of the commercial quantum era – a formative period when quantum computing technology and its early use cases develop rapidly. The general public will embrace this new era, as our collective understanding of quantum computing continues to grow and touch every industry and every educational institution. Concepts and vocabulary rooted in quantum computing will no longer be vague or misunderstood, but instead part of the mainstream vernacular. Conversations around quantum computing will be normal. Everyone will know what a qubit is – or be familiar with the idea.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The approach to designing the game was incredibly unique, bringing together IBM experts in user-centered design, mobile development, and quantum computing with Dr. Wooten's extensive experience in teaching quantum computing. The team took inspiration from classic games such as pinball and Sudoku to design a fresh yet familiar visual style, as well as a design that represents complex concepts with simplified shapes, colors and interaction patterns. Rather than forcing users through a high barrier of entry by using complex strings of code or zeros and ones, we designed an intuitive game experience in which users manipulate simple circular shapes by playing their "control keys" that represent quantum gates. Additionally, users are not forced through our educational content. Throughout game play, they are given bite-sized bits of information, with additional information available if they are curious to learn more. Without realizing it, users build real quantum circuits while playing the game, but they don't have to look under the hood and learn about what's possible if they don't want to.
Who worked on the project?
Amanda Shearon - visual & UX designer; Greg Boland - developer; Ivan Duran - developer; Hyun Lee - branding; Dr. James Wootton - Quantum expert
View the project video:
IBM Cloud Functions
Company IBM
Introduction Date December 15, 2016
Project Website https://console.bluemix.net/openwhisk/
Why is this project worthy of an award?
IBM Cloud Functions is a programming platform that enables developers to quickly build server-less web and mobile applications, allowing professional Cloud developers to build microservices, transform data, and integrate AI services. IBM Cloud Functions is an enterprise-grade platform that is powerful enough to orchestrate multiple different services at once and dynamically manage machine resources both on and off the cloud. By connecting services together, it can form a cloud application that performs one or more actions based on triggered events. For example, by combining AI services with data, a developer can build a mobile application that can identify a customer's feeling about a product and respond with the appropriate emotion. What makes IBM Cloud Functions great to use is that it provides a low barrier entry into the world of server-less computing, making it easy for anyone to dive right into building their first server-less application. A first time user learns how to do this through a step-by-step guide that will have an application running in minutes. Even developers who are not Cloud technology experts can create a powerful app on their own. IBM Cloud Functions integrates well into a developer's workflow, giving him or her the option to pick a programming language and use their favorite local development tools. A developer can start building an application in the IBM Cloud and then transition to working on their project on their own machine. The tool provides three different ways to interact with it: a CLI, an API, and an easy-to-read UI, making it available for any developer's preference.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
"IBM Cloud Functions definitely has an edge in terms of developer experience." - Stacksense Today, more web developers are using server-less applications in their architecture. Those who are interested in building microservices, and IoT and AI applications are turning to this cutting edge technology to handle the complexity of their apps. IBM Cloud Functions works with all of IBM Cloud's services, including IBM Watson, enabling developers to create robust, secure, and complex applications. It also connects with services outside of the IBM Cloud, so developers are not limited creatively on what they can build. The challenge faced when designing this product was how to make the tool fit into most developers' workflows easily while providing a friendly WYSIWYG. The design intent of the interface is to invoke the code in a playful way, while paralleling the API and CLI experience. Adapting to new models of technology is usually a steep learning curve, but IBM Cloud Functions provides a clear path for developers of different skill levels to understand. Ultimately, developers are driven to use IBM Cloud Functions because it gives them more time to focus on their code and less time worrying about their runtime and infrastructure. They are able to piece together technologies of their choice to create intelligent, complex applications.
Who worked on the project?
Design Lead: Thomas Ortelt Design Team: Thomas Grikschas, Linda Weber, Micah Linnemeier, Morgana D'Almeida
View the project video: https://youtu.be/CzJ5PzdpqMU , https://youtu.be/t8Ao0bmdvQM , https://youtu.be/ad6Wecfiq9M
IBM Cognos Analytics for Storytelling
Company IBM
Introduction Date September 1, 2016
Project Website https://yasminetaha18.wixsite.com/ifstorytellinginca
Why is this project worthy of an award?
The storytelling features in Cognos Analytics provides a way for business professionals to communicate their data in clear and engaging ways. Businesses often deal with a lot of data that have important implications for their operations and an impact on their decisions. While this information may be important, communicating it to stakeholders in a way that is easy to understand as well as engaging and exciting is a challenge. Storytelling comes into play here as it helps shape the data into a context and format that audiences can relate to. Presenting information this way can have a great impact on a business as they are able to communicate with their stakeholders on a more personable level, rather than just reading off numbers or presenting confusing charts. Storytelling in Cognos Analytics aims to reshape the way data is relayed, using functions such as slideshows, infographics, interactive components, automatic visualizations, and more to create a narrative out of a data set or series of charts.When creating Storytelling for IBM Cognos Analytics, we foremost considered how can we help our users tell compelling stories with their data. With a user base of largely business analysts, we realized that our users are not professional story tellers, or at all accustomed to applying creativity when presenting their data. Our main challenge creating a tool for our users to easily build engaging, aesthetic stories with actual data.We ended up with a feature that is cross between a presentation tool and a video tool, including a simple timeline that allows the user to choose when visualizations appear on screen. Users can drag and drop data, shapes, images, and text to create their data narrative. The tool offers prebuilt scene transitions so a user can have a simple slideshow or an infinite canvas for their data narrative. Our tool lets the audience feel like they are being immersed in the story that the data creates.Storytelling in IBM Cognos Analytics allows business analysts to present their data to stakeholders in an interesting way, and also non-professional users to work with data in an intuitive and easy way. This tool brings together these two types of users and allows them to engage with data in a way they never have before. By combining stories with real data, users have the tools of emotional engagement as well as tested facts at their disposal, allowing any message they are trying to communicate to be strengthened. Storytelling at Cognos Analytics gives our users a truly unique capability and experience, as well as brings a focus of design the field of enterprise software.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The storytelling features in Cognos Analytics bring innovation and a focus on user experience that enterprise software does not usually offer. The innovation lies in the interactive nature of the storytelling tool that enable users to connect with their audience in a whole new way. This tool can have a great impact in the field of business and data analytics. Our users are often experts working with hard facts and numbers that are difficult to communicate to their non-expert audience. The storytelling feature of Cognos Analytics expands on the world of data science in the business and enterprise context, and makes it more relatable and applicable to a broader audience.With precedent and a standard in mind, we began our process with the existing drag and drop feature in Cognos Analytics, where users are able to drag and drop their data into a visualization plane. We built upon this feature to include shapes, images, and animations in the data visualization. This elevated the data presentation from simple visuals to visuals that were able to tell a narrative. These features allow users to engage with a live view of the data, instead of relying on previous tools that only offer static features. Users can view data changes with different filters in real time, pause their story if someone has questions, and actually interact with the data by adding filters, highlighting data, ranking it, and more.
Who worked on the project?
Yasmine Taha, Tedford Chan
View the project video:
IBM Hybrid Cloud Design Internal Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
This internal IBM site was designed and built as part of a wider effort within the Hybrid Cloud Design organization to bring visibility to the work of the design team and to educate the engineering and management leadership about the design practice and the benefits it can bring to software development. The site functions as an educational site raising awareness about the design process, its various deliverables and the lines of work within the design organization (user research, UX and visual design and prototyping). The site also functions as a management tool to track the progress of the various design initiatives and to share the design deliverables with stakeholders in the engineering and management organizations. It acts as a tracking tool for the research and design artifacts generated as part of a project (such as personas, user studies, empathy maps, etc.) and tracks the final designs through the evaluation and implementation by engineering, design quality reviews and ultimately product release. The site is used on daily basis by various groups of users who have various needs for their daily work activities. Engineering and management stakeholders visit the site to learn more about the design practice and to track the progress of the design effort surrounding their products. Members of the design organization itself visit the site to gain access to the resources they need to get their day to day work done. Researchers access their research best practices, study collateral and report templates. Similarly, designers access the design system and the various design libraries and guidelines they need. The site is designed in a way that allows each category of users to focus on their goals and be productive. For example, designers have access to all the design resources they need available to them in the design section of the site. The same is true for researchers and prototypes. Engineering and management stakeholders can find everything pertaining to the designs of their products in the projects section. Each section is designed with its primary audience in mind. Yet, any user can visit any section of the site and find useful information that can inform them about the respective design practice and what it entails. Each section seamlessly combines specialized productivity for a primary audience with informative content for other groups of users who would benefit from learning more about the practice. The site also incorporates strong branding that reflects the various practices within the design organization and the domain of focus for the Hybrid Cloud Organization, enterprise software products that enable cloud and on-premise solutions. Beautiful graphics and animations add joy to the experience of using the site.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
For the second part, I just made some changes at the end. I don't think we should focus too much on the things that we're planning on doing for the website. I added a paragraph to it, let me know what you think: One of the key aspects of this project is that it is part of not only a larger design promotion effort but also an ongoing process of designing and evolving the organization's workflows and processes. Parts of the site are regularly re-evaluated to assess how they can serve and facilitate the work team members need to accomplish. For example, the site is currently being integrated into the workflows of user researchers enabling their latest research findings to be surfaced and distributed automatically to the various projects to which they pertain without requiring any additional intervention on the part of the researchers or site admin. Similarly, the organization is in the process of expanding its design review and evaluation processes and various integration points with the site are being added to enable these processes. From adding the capability of management and engineering stakeholders to request design reviews, to automatically logging and tracking review requests and their outcomes, to integrating notification capabilities via email and slack conversations to reach all parties involved in the planning and coordination of reviews; the site is constantly in the process of evolving and adapting to the needs of the organization and its operations. In summary, this site is not merely an exercise in web design but also a vital iterative exercise in process design and evolution. The nature of this website is innovative as it enables a connection and transparency between designers and engineers or managers in the enterprise software environment. A challenge that we face is how to integrate the role of design and user experience at a large scale into our organization. This website as part of the overall effort is a great example of fostering that integration by inviting everyone at IBM to find out about the ongoings of the designers in the Hybrid Cloud org.
Who worked on the project?
Sean Stopnik - Front End Developer Stephane Rodet - Front End Developer Rami Alayan - UX Design Peter Perceval - Visual/motion design Natalie Caudell - Visual design David Levinson - Art director Tom Waterton - Content writer Terry Bleizeffer - Project manager Alan Underwood - Front End Developer
View the project video:
IBM Immersive Insights
Company IBM
Introduction Date October 1, 2016
Project Website https://medium.com/@alfredo.ruiz/bringing-data-to-life-with-ibm-immersive-insights-9423687c9ffe
Why is this project worthy of an award?
IBM Immersive Insights is an exciting new tool that is exposing the possibilities of AR/VR in the enterprise software field. Immersive Insights is a data exploration tool that uses AR technology to help users explore their data and communicate findings in new ways. The AR technology takes data visualizations to a new level, making data exploration a more multi-faceted, collaborative process.AR allows users to view their data in 3D, creating more powerful visuals and thus new opportunities for users to make findings in their data that 2D visuals would not present. By visualizing data in 3D and viewing data from new angles and perspectives, data scientists can identify key patterns, relationships, and outliers in seconds, where it would normally take hours of work.IBM Immersive Insights is among the first projects to be exploring the AR space for data and enterprise use, as well as how to design for these uses. Designing for Augmented Reality is a unique challenge as this technology is in a young stage and fast evolving, and designing for a technology that is so underdeveloped is not an easy task. One of the biggest challenges the design team faced was that they had to create their own design resources and guidelines for this project, since Augmented Reality is a relatively new technology. They mostly worked through trial and error to establish a new set of best practices for this type of interface, without any precedent. Along with these design challenges, the design team needed to learn about the workspace of data science in order to design the best tool for their users. Understanding the complicated workflows that data scientists use was a challenge for designers, before even beginning to design a tool for these users. IBM Immersive Insights is a pioneering tool in it’s field, one of the first to be exploring the use of AR for enterprise uses. This technology has all kinds of implications in industries such as science, business, education, and more. The designers of this project are working in uncharted territory and setting new design precedents, and are enabling this tool to revolutionize the AR as well as the data science field.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Immersive Insights has a number of unique properties that make it an exciting for both users and the designers working on it. The AR technology of Immersive Insights allows the user to gather all their data in one place and visualize it in a 3D capacity. They can move and shift data points around, giving them a new and clearer way to understand relationships between data points. The tool features the ability to select and label specific points, preview data values, and alter the visuals in real time. The user can scale the visuals, allowing for total visual immersion in the data. During user research designers found that the target users value direct collaboration and constant communication while working with their data. Immersive Insights allows multiple users worldwide to view the same information at the same time, allowing for efficient and constant collaboration. Users can explore the data and share insights within the same virtual space as each other. Since multiple users can use the tool at once, it allows for a new level of collaboration and data exploration across teams. The AR technology removes physical boundaries of a workspace, creating endless space for users to work and collaborate in. One of the most interesting and challenging aspects about designing for AR/VR is that designers need to take into consideration multidimensionality and the physical aesthetics of every part of the product that is designed. The shift from designing for screens to designing an actual environment is a journey in itself. To create great user experiences with this new technology and space, designers need to learn about the physical objects, 3D sound, haptic feedback, and materials all involved in the product. Most important to consider is how to humanize a world that is a blend of physical and virtual reality in order to create a truly optimal user experience.
Who worked on the project?
Alfredo Ruiz, Ben Resnick, Jenna Goldberg, Christian Fritsche, Dimitri Hoffmann, Jan Hassel, Eddie Rietz, Thomas Grikschas, Linda Webber
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj-m2SItDl4
IBM Plex
Company IBM (International Business Machines)
Introduction Date January 1, 2018
Project Website http://ibm.com/plex
Why is this project worthy of an award?
As the name suggests, IBM Plex is one part of a larger systemic effort to increase IBM's "individuality" as an organization as applied to every experience, based on an emergent design philosophy we call Duo. Plex is designed to perform, and there are many details that have been painstakingly considered and crafted. Plex takes up less visual real estate versus other typefaces. Plex italics are angled with such precision as to be rendered pixel-perfect on screen. Overall, Plex is an opinionated typeface for an opinionated company, and serves to provide a constant through-line in all applications of it.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
IBM Plex™ is the new corporate typeface for IBM worldwide and an open source project developed by the IBM Brand & Experience team (BX&D). Plex is an international typeface family designed to capture IBM’s brand character and reflect the unique relationship between mankind and machine—a continuous theme for IBM since the turn of the last century. The result is a neutral, yet friendly Grotesque style typeface that balances expression with engineered details that make Plex™ distinctly IBM. The family includes a Sans, Sans Condensed, Mono, and Serif and has excellent legibility in print, web and mobile interfaces.
Who worked on the project?
Originally conceived by Todd Simmons, VP, IBM Brand Experience & Design, Plex was designed by Mike Abbink, IBM Executive Creative Director, Distinguished Designer in collaboration with Bold Monday, an independent Dutch type foundry established by Paul van der Laan and Pieter van Rosmalen. Plex is a work-in-progress, and is currently being translated world-wide by working local-language experts and typographers around the globe.
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmkAC3pn9gE&feature=youtu.be
IBM Watson Career Coach
Company IBM
Introduction Date September 26, 2017
Project Website https://www.ibm.com/talent-management/career-coach
Why is this project worthy of an award?
IBM Watson Career Coach transforms career management with the power of Watson. Employees are guided by Myca, an artificially intelligent coach, to plan and develop their careers. Companies retain and cultivate talent when opportunity for growth and recognition is clearly visible to employees. Users in all stages of their careers can interact with Myca to get instant answers to their career questions. Myca knows about the user through company data, chat interaction and user feedback. Myca uses all this data and learns from mistakes to become better over time. Employees can plan their career from where they are today to their dream job. They can put together a path for their future based on jobs that match their experience and have high growth potential. Myca also knows how similar employees have made career moves in the past and can surface these trends to guide users. Employees get learning recommendations for their current role and future roles. Growing skills allows employees to prepare for their aspirations, today, for a more successful tomorrow. Myca surfaces learning tailored to the individual that has also resonated with employees in similar positions. Employees can discover learning and opportunities that they would not have thought of or found otherwise. Watson Career Coach also allows executives to see how employees are using the tool, what types of career paths are being built and other trends in activity. These insights ensure the workforce is in line with the company’s future and help shape corporate policy to fill the needs of their talent. They can find out what employees are interested in and how they’re feeling about their careers through user activity and feedback. Watson uses employee feedback to ensure users are having a quality experience and getting answers to their questions. Feedback is used to fine tune recommendations and learn more about the finesse of conversing.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
What’s going on under the hood is very complex. Myca ingests user provided information, company data, user feedback and chat responses. She learns and remembers what’s important to the user and provides recommendations based on all of this. Myca also knows every possible career path within a company and is able to find the best possible paths for the individual. This complex technology is delivered to the user in a light experience. Complexity is hidden in simplicity. Many solutions exist to develop career plans, surface jobs and search for learning, but Watson Career Coach stands out by building a layer of artificial intelligence on these experiences through mining massive amounts of data for success trends. This allows employees to make the best use of their learning time and to focus on jobs that truly match their aspirations. User research shapes our product experience at every stage. We combine I/O psychology, cognitive research, IBM Enterprise Design Thinking and end user testing to understand the employee and design conversational flows to serve their needs. Research also drives our design decisions in all aspects of the experience for employees, executives and administrators.
Who worked on the project?
IBM Watson Career Coach Project Team Wendy Tandon – Offering Manager Craig Shoneman – Principal Offering Manager Lori Moffett – Design Lead Beau Ulrey – Visual Designer Deb Maher – Senior Design Researcher John Howrey – Design Principal Stefan Liesche – Distinguished Engineer Art Thomas – Chief Architect Brian Plugge – Service Planner Hannah Hemmingham – Assessment + Leadership Consultant Roberta Hennessey – Senior Information Developer
View the project video: https://ibm.box.com/v/wcc-demo
