Disrupting Science: Reimagining Atomic Force Microscopy
Company Infragistics
Introduction Date October 26, 2017
Project Website https://www.keysight.com/en/pd-2569391/nanonavigator-software?cc=US&lc=eng
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Originally created by and for the scientific community, Keysight Technologies' Atomic Force Microscope software had a steep learning curve that required years to master. Our design needed to support the workflows of multiple types of users. Physicists and chemists with a long history of using the application, and in some cases helped design the original version, needed to be able to transition seamlessly to our new design. New academic users and technical support staff who were familiar with the purpose of an atomic force microscope but not with the application that controls it also had to be considered. Finally, we were designing for a new group of commercial users, who would only be using the device for specific, industry related tasks, rather than long term scientific research. From a strict design perspective, we demonstrated to a very traditional user population the value of a true design process. We provided alternatives to the poorly designed software they currently use, and delivered a useful, usable and visually striking piece of scientific software. From the perspective of the business, we eliminated the need for novice user training, demonstrating 100% novice user success rates, up from 0%. Experienced user training, which typically took place over a number of years, was also substantially reduced, allowing researchers to focus on their work rather than learning a complex interface. And finally, we were able to incorporate new functionality, making the application more valuable to experienced users while keeping the interface simple and intuitive.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
We began by conducting in-person contextual inquiries with representatives of the different user groups. Once we understood the mechanics of the application's functionality, the users' workflows and mental models, and the limitations of the physical environment, including the 32" monitor shipped with the microscope, we were able to begin sketching various ways of visually representing solutions. Once we had agreement on the information architecture and the primary interaction models, we created a detailed wireframe prototype. This let us explore how users would complete typical tasks sitting at the monitor and from across the room, and how well our design matched their needs. After 2 rounds of validation, we were able to create the final visual designs, and be confident that we had exceeded the expectations of our clients and the users. The best comment we received was from a scientist who told us, "This is the sleekest scientific interface I've ever see."
Who worked on the project?
Kevin Richardson, Director of User Experience, Infragistics Kent Eisenhuth, Senior Interaction Designer, Google
View the project video: https://youtu.be/LwcxWM6IkKc
Disrupting the Wedding Content Market: Love Stories TV Debuts New and Improved Video Platform
Company Love Stories TV
Introduction Date January 24, 2018
Project Website http://www.lovestoriestv.com
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Dubbed the “Netflix for wedding videos” and called a secret weapon for wedding planning, Love Stories TV has built the first and only platform for real wedding videos. Both a discovery platform as well as an entertainment destination, the company’s mission is to provide its community with a never-ending supply of wedding related inspiration and entertainment in a fun and organized way. With its unmatched collection of data-enriched wedding films, submitted by both couples and wedding filmmakers from around the world, Love Stories TV is a hub for a fast-growing and deeply engaged community of newlyweds and wedding film enthusiasts. Supporting inclusivity and equality in weddings, Love Stories TV publishes all professionally-produced videos regardless of budget, aesthetic, sexual orientation, culture, religion or country. Visitors watch films for ideas, planning and inspiration such as Jewish boho weddings, gay Muslim weddings, elopements in Norway or watch for entertainment, such as films that strike an emotional chord such as Dads Who Will Make You Cry, Best Groom Reactions, and Weddings With Pets. The idea for Love Stories TV was born when founder Rachel Jo Silver, who at the time was running content marketing for a major beauty retailer, started paying attention to wedding videos. She had decided against having one at her 2013 wedding and immediately regretted it. When she started paying more attention to her friends’ wedding videos on social media, something clicked between her content marketing brain and her nostalgic bride brain: this was the best content she had ever seen. Real people, real love, professional production. She began to think: what could possibly be more fun if you were planning your wedding than to get ideas, inspiration, and find vendors by watching other people’s wedding videos? Love Stories TV, which was founded in 2016, unveiled a complete platform redesign in January 2018. The new site makes watching, searching and sharing videos more fun than ever, and lets couples browse for inspiration, check out venues, watch vows and toasts, see the work of videographers, discover products and services and so much more. The site has clocked more than 15 million minutes of watch time in less than two years. Love Stories TV also boasts the longest time on site relative to other leading wedding websites. In addition to serving as a planning tool and entertainment destination, Love Stories TV is quickly becoming a valuable marketing platform for wedding brands. Visitors can buy products and services highlighted in the videos. They’re like commercials for the products and services featured, but better because they’re real. This authenticity is what brands and business spend millions of dollars trying to achieve with their marketing efforts, but rarely do. Plus, everyone wins – engaged couples, wedding vendors, filmmakers, and advertisers – all benefit from the ecosystem created on the new site.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
We’re living in an intense, but important time with a lot to pay attention to. Love Stories TV is focused on sharing stories about the love and good that is still very present in our world. We think planning a wedding should be fun, not stressful, and sought to make this easier and more fun with the redesigned site. Videos provide value that still photography can’t: speeches, vows, pre-wedding interviews with the couple, note exchanges, officiant’s ceremony, the couple’s first look, toasts, dances, movement, sounds and so much more. Video focuses on the most important part of the wedding—a happy, joyful day filled with love, gratitude, friends, and family. The redesigned site focuses precisely on this: to help couples search for their dream filmmaker, the perfect venue, ideas for what to say during a toast and so much more. With changes driven by audience feedback, the fully redesigned lovestoriestv.com includes a faster and more dynamic viewing experience, making it easier to watch, share and search the vast library. Understanding millennial preferences and given that 90% of the company’s site traffic comes from mobile, Love Stories TV ensured the mobile experience is equally powerful. Both couples and the filmmaking community benefit from videos and the data that allows couples to essentially source vendors directly from each video. Such features include: – An optimized viewing experience: Through the integration of JW player, Love Stories TV now stores and plays video files for a faster, smoother viewing experience. Additionally, when one video ends, a new one begins. A search for “ballrooms in Detroit” will bring up a queue of recommended videos, making it easier to binge-watch wedding videos. – Improved search and filter: There’s no more powerful video-based tool for couples planning their weddings, and there’s something for everyone. Visitors can search in three different ways: 1) Video searches: Search specifics like “Elopements in Iceland” or “Fall Vineyard Weddings” to view relevant wedding films for inspiration and ideas. 2) Filmmaker search: View all the contributions from local videographers and compare their works. 3) Venue search: Search “Ballrooms in Detroit” to view wedding venue pages and all associated wedding films so couples can do preliminary site checks from their couch (especially useful for those planning destination weddings) – Contact videographers directly: Couples looking to hire a videographer for their wedding day can email videographers directly through the site after viewing their work – Additional tools for filmmakers: Including bulk uploading for filmmakers and a custom dashboard for filmmakers to view the performance of their videos compared to their peers. Love Stories TV is also giving wedding filmmakers, venues, brands and service providers a new, authentic way to reach prospective clients. The company has partnered with brands such as David’s Bridal, Bonobos and the Jamaica Tourist Board, introducing new co-branded video experiences and e-commerce integrations that leverage this high quality and completely authentic video content.
Who worked on the project?
CoVenture; Ronen Magid, CTO; Vanessa Buenger, Head of Growth; Caitlin Scott, Audience Development Lead; Rachel Silver, Founder & CEO
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jipszix1Kgc
Domo AR for Business Helps Your Data Find You Through Your Mobile Phone
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Traditionally, Augmented Reality (AR) has been the promise of science fiction – imaginations running wild with the possibilities of the complicated and experimental technology without a materialized product to touch or try. Today however, pressures on technology companies to create the “next big thing” has many people wondering what the future can hold. In business operations and analysis, there exists a huge chasm between the worlds of physical and virtual, creating a unique opportunity to blend both worlds together and leverage business data in the plane that offers the greatest value for the user. The bridging of the chasm between the physical and virtual worlds is Domo’s latest solution – Augmented Reality for Business. Domo’s cloud-based operating system for business empowers all employees within a company to collaborate and share data, easily accessing it in a more visual, user-friendly space. Domo provides decision makers with real-time data that can be shared across teams, bolstering collaboration and productivity. By overlaying digital items such as data, images, objects, documents onto the physical world, Domo’s AR for Business, through an App built on the Domo platform, offers users a powerful display of business information in new places – bringing the data and insights directly to the phone that overlays the real world with helpful information. For a Domo retail customer example, multiple deliveries and promotions happen every day and products are constantly being moved from the backroom to the shelves. More than about 1% of the goods at any given time need to be removed because they’re expired or damaged. It’s logistical dance that demands constant attention and, Domo’s AR for Business offers the potential to notify employees of expected deliveries and recommend optimal product placement, improving efficiency and reduce the problem of “phantom inventory” – misplaced stock resulting in costly write-offs. Additionally, Domo AR can automatically direct employees on the floor to remove recalled or expiring products, freeing up managers’ time spent assigning employees to go hunting, checking dates and labels. The user interacts with Domo AR from their mobile device. As they hold their device towards an area of the store, or at a store associate, the app is able to identify what goods or store section the user is approaching and pulls together the numerous data points from numerous systems, that the store has on that area or section of the store. Domo AR for Business changes the typical experience of the user looking for data, to data coming directly to the user on his/her phone It blends the physical and virtual, so that business data can exist outside of its digital shell and be presented in a physical way that is clear, actionable and improve the users’ ability to make better decisions for the good of the company.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
While the Domo platform is built as an enterprise product, it has always been designed for the people using it every day, from their mobile phones. Domo was developed to help all companies break free of data silos and empower their teams with the insights they need to make better business decisions. Business analytics are useless without action and Domo enables all users to get and understand deep data insights that result in faster business impact. Domo’s 1,500 customers, who make up 36 percent of the Fortune 50, query between 100 to 200 trillion rows of data from un-cached queries on a typical day. This impressive use of data is a testament to the continued adoption of data-driven cultures. Millions of dollars are spent each year on spreadsheets and analytic tools to offer insights, but don’t always connect to the real world in a meaningful and actionable way. Data requires action to take the next step and to place data and insights in context with the problem they are solving. Domo AR for Business looks to solve those problems by enhancing our customers ability to leverage data insights into business value through seeing their data in a physical context on their mobile devices. The Domo platform is used to help increase productivity, education and accountability. For example, today the retail giant Target uses the Domo platform across multiple departments and roles (from the CEO to the store managers) to improve the guest experience, while optimizing inventory, improving sales, and managing its supply chain across 1,800 stores. Domo AR could further optimize the way the stores are managed by bringing the right merchandising data to employees at the right time. Bohme, a women’s apparel retail chain, experienced a 15 percent increase in revenue after implementing the platform within their business operations. Before Domo, the data needed to make operations improvements wasn’t available in a timely manner and decision makers didn’t have the insights they needed to take the actions that would help to achieve their goals. With Domo and with real-time, relevant insights, managers and employees now collaborate across departments and take action based on accurate data. Domo AR for Business can take that data and actions beyond the digital and offers physical, tangible insights through a simple design and powerful mobile experience. For example, Domo AR can be helpful for Bohme customer interactions and questions by providing better and consistent data to answer questions about the physical products on the floor through a quick scan of the store. Presenting employees with the data they need in a clear and actionable way improves their ability to make better decisions. By using data and codifying some AR best practices, users can have the best opportunity to read and react to business situations in real-time. *Please note: Provided project images are for judging purposes only. Rights of personal image for public use will need to be obtained.
Who worked on the project?
Chris Willis, Chief of Design, Domo; Domo UX team
View the project video:
DoorDash App
Company DoorDash
Introduction Date January 18, 2018
Project Website https://blog.doordash.com/delivering-good-its-a-movement-16b5f7094c61
Why is this project worthy of an award?
DoorDash is not just connecting customers with meals - it connects them to endless possibilities including easier evenings, happier days, wholesome family meals, wider nets, and stronger communities. DoorDash’s user-friendly app has been updated to reflect an aesthetic rebrand that showcases DoorDash’s continued commitment to deliver the widest range of restaurants to your doorstep while connecting people with their local community. This all starts with the app and its design. It was built with the customer in mind - creating a seamless experience from the homepage to post check out. DoorDash has recognized that users come to the app with a spectrum of mindsets - from knowing exactly what they want to not knowing at all. So the team created a home page to match that by spending a lot of time perfecting both the home page and explore the page to ensure users can navigate the app quickly. The design offers everything the customer needs - search functions throughout, filters, cuisines, featured partners, those offering free delivery, and then a list of available restaurants for those customers who are unsure of what they want. Finally, post check-out - users want to see all of the information in one place - the order, the estimated arrival time, the map, and an option to contact support if a challenge occurs. This page was designed with that in mind, a way for users to seamlessly navigate as they are waiting for their food. As a DoorDash customer, you always know where your order is in the delivery journey. Whether the Dasher is on the way to the restaurant, waiting for your food or nearing your location, the DoorDash app provides transparency in keeping you up to date every step of the way. To do this, the Dasher and Merchant apps utilize Bluetooth signals to let DoorDash know when a Dasher has arrived at or departed from a restaurant. The signals provide improved accurate location information notifications, compared to traditional geo-fencing using GPS, for when a Dasher arrives and leaves a given restaurant. This helps DoorDash improve restaurant wait times, better-estimate delivery times and improve parking information within the Dasher app. The DoorDash secret sauce lies within its wealth of applicable data science, and the DoorDash app is constantly evolving to make browsing, choosing, and ordering your favorite food easier than ever. With this in mind, DoorDash has worked tirelessly to build an improved “suggestions” feature which provides an algorithm using machine learning to make suggestions more personalized and relevant for each customer. This feature also harnesses the power of the crowd to recommend a restaurant’s most loved items. Based on tests, DoorDash expects the average DoorDash customer will try 2–3 new items per month - allowing customers to explore the very best of their city.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
As a company, DoorDash is deeply committed to delivering good by connecting people and possibility, something that has always been intrinsic to its internal culture. DoorDash brought this to life externally with a renewed brand strategy and redesign. DoorDash knows that it’s not enough to simply deliver meals on-demand. Instead, the DoorDash team recognizes the importance of a frictionless user experience on a mobile platform that embodies the company’s most dearly-held values. The new visual identity was inspired by the DoorDash story and spirit of the organization, as well as the Consumers, Dashers, and Merchants they serve. The new logo reinforces the attributes the company has thrived on: making bold moves, being relentless and fast-moving, standing for reliability and efficiency. It’s the symbol that now represents the company mission: delivering good by connecting people and possibility. In research, the company dived into why the audiences use DoorDash and what they've been able to accomplish with them — from customers' being able to take care of themselves and their families and friends to Dashers supporting themselves and their families or just earning a little extra for something special, to merchants transforming and growing their businesses. DoorDash’s visual system including photography style, illustration, and iconography were all inspired by the potential that they represent in their lives. The illustration and iconography utilize the "dash," derived from the name and the negative space of the logo, and it is used to represent the idea of potential and possibilities. A dashed line is a perfect way to convey the idea of something that is yet-to-be realized. Overall, the design has been praised by those in the industry and customers alike. The company looks forward to creating new and better experience for its hungry customers and restaurant partners.
Who worked on the project?
Jimmy Liu, Product Manager; Xilin Liu, iOS Engineer; Charlton Soesanto, Product Manager
View the project video:
Dreamforce 2017
Company George P. Johnson
Introduction Date November 6, 2018
Project Website https://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/get-ready/
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Salesforce is a major competitor in one of the most hotly contested markets in the business world, enterprise SaaS cloud-based applications. Every year in San Francisco, Salesforce hosts Dreamforce, the world’s largest B2B customer conference. The major goal of Dreamforce, which is Salesforce’s flagship marketing expenditure each year, is to provide an immersive, technology-fueled experience that democratizes enterprise technology for its vast customer community. “Equal parts luau, spring break, rock festival, food drive, and TEDx.” – Wall Street Journal The event, which has grown to 171,000 registered attendees, aims to excite Salesforce users and the business marketplace with the company’s vision, launch new products, educate their customers on how to better deploy and use their products, and rally communities of their different user bases (executives, administrators, developers). Dreamforce is four days of learning, innovation, fun and giving back that embodies Marc Benioff’s vision that ‘The Business of Business Is Improving the State of the World’. The event isn’t constructed as a straightforward selling experience, because their key insight is that people want to find out about products but don’t want to be overtly sold to. It’s an experience that celebrates, enables, and inspires the huge Salesforce customer base (whom they call Trailblazers) to chart their own course through the experience to learn about how Salesforce products drive business success, and also how to become better corporate citizens.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Dreamforce isn’t just a conference, it’s a hugely creative, compelling, inspiring brand experience that turns 17 locations across San Francisco (including the entire Moscone Center, and AT&T park) into an immersive world that invites Trailblazers to get hands-on with Salesforce’s products. The world that Salesforce built this year had a National Park theme, where attendees were encouraged to ‘Blaze their own trail’ through the experience in order to engage with the Salesforce products and services relevant to their role. The entirety of Moscone Center and hotels all over San Francisco were transformed into Campgrounds, Lodges and Stations where various Salesforce products were brought to life in interactive installations, demos, workshops and hands-on experiences. Across the campus, space was filled with the sounds of crickets and birds, docents were dressed in ranger outfits, welcome and product stations were designed as park lodges, there were functioning indoor waterfalls, and large forest-based characters roamed the halls. Howard Street, between Moscone North and South, was shut down to create Dream Valley, a gateway into the brand experience where participants could network, relax, meditate with twenty Buddhist monks, and listen to a non-stop lineup of bands. A large number of thought leaders were featured in keynotes. Michelle Obama, Ashton Kutcher, and Ginni Rommety of IBM came to inspire attendees with their thoughts on how individuals and companies can blaze new paths in the world – in work and in life. At Campground in Moscone South—the primary Salesforce product area—six highly interactive customer success stories showcased how companies like Adidas were harnessing the power of Salesforce products to drive better results. Moscone West was transformed into a forest for Trailhead, a learning-based experience intent on democratizing technology with workshops, certifications, mini-hacks, and hands-on-labs for executives, administrators, developers, and even a large group of kids aged 12-18. AT&T park served as the 2017 home of Dreamfest, a night where Salesforce celebrates attendees, by hosting a concert with Lenny Kravitz and Alicia Keys to raise money for UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals. Salesforce lived its brand mission by actually building a sustainable event. They offset 100% of onsite event emissions, 400 “green angel” employee volunteers helped attendees recycle and compost during lunch, they sourced 100% compostable packaging for lunch, and over 5 million gallons of water were conserved by eliminating beef from the menu. Dreamforce is the most engaging, compelling and business-driving B2B company event experience in the world. This is why 171,000 people registered to attend this year. This year Salesforce generated 120% year-on-year pipeline growth, generated a total estimated reach of 163M impressions, 4.7M broadcast impressions, and raised $15M in donations for UCSF Benioff Hospitals.
Who worked on the project?
Annette Griffin, Account Executive, George P. Johnson Catherine Simmons, VP, Strategic Events, Salesforce Matt McGinn, Executive Producer, George P. Johnson Melissa Stevenson, Account Executive, George P. Johnson Brian Thompson, Senior Creative Director James Christian, Executive Creative Director Patrick Du, Senior Digital Producer
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvGIs1Egj3o
