Adobe Summit: event identity + experiences
Why is this project worthy of an award?
2018 Adobe Summit is a celebration of Experience Makers. "Maker" by definition is a person who create; form; shape. Based on the theme, the event identity should be equally expressive in both digital and physical form. This year the identity consists of two components: digital modular pattern (vector) + physical installation (photographs). You might ask why create a physically installation then photograph it when one can achieve nearly identical result from digital renderings? A bespoke installation is unique. Through the makers’ hands they’ve each added a layer of depth which is one of a kind, hard to replicate with digital renderings. Much like the range of skills required of modern day Experience Makers, the final artwork is blend of a variety of disciplines: 2D & 3D, digital & physical, software skills & traditional crafts, plus a lot of love. The installation was shipped from UK to Vegas for the event. Attendees were able to see, feel and interact with the identity. See how it is made: https://www.behance.net/gallery/62278163/Adobe-Summit-2018-Identity
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The identity consists of two components: physical installation (photographs) + digital grid pattern (vector). The system is flexible for various needs to produce the event experience. - Making of Summit identity: https://create.adobe.com/2018/3/24/wall_together_now_th.html - Main stage stinger: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7wxumgvqcyk7go/Summit2018-Opener.mp4?dl=0 - Main LED event entrance animation: https://adobe.ly/2qmtg8a
Who worked on the project?
Steve Gustavson, Executive Creative Director, Adobe Angela Fisher, Creative Director, Design, Adobe Morgan McManus, Associate Art Director, Adobe Ashley Vong, Associate Art Director, Adobe Nicole Williams, Executive Creative Producer, Adobe Joe Buchwald, Creative Producer, Adobe Deb Fant, Sr. Studio Manager, Adobe Kristine Jensen, Content & Web Producer, Adobe DBLG LDN Almost Everything Pix Productions
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/250443822
Affirm’s Mobile Applications - User Experience
Company Affirm Inc.
Introduction Date April 23, 2018
Project Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
The evolution of Affirm’s mobile apps helps to further advance our goal of unlocking financial possibilities by creating a seamless experience for our customers that enables them to understand the true cost of their purchase. Our updated app experience gives more clarity to how much our customers can spend with Affirm and rewarding customers for good behavior within the Affirm ecosystem through lower rates, extended limits, and special offers at the merchants they love. The app further expands the opportunity to pay for purchases over time from online merchants to brick-and-mortar retailers, via Apple Pay and Google Pay. Affirm’s newly designed mobile apps have directly contributed to business growth, such as a 25% lift in order volume and a 50%+ lift in conversion. Customers also love the app giving it high ratings across Google’s Play Store (4.8/5 stars) and Apple’s App Store (4.6/5 stars).
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Our design is innovative because it hides how technical the product truly is. There are many players involved: APIs to generate card numbers, near-instant credit approvals to quickly give customers their credit limit, and more. The true innovation here is using beautiful design to help customers understand their purchase and what it means to them in the scheme of their financial life, without needing to know the many complex layers involved underneath. Please refer to attached one pager
Who worked on the project?
Affirm’s Consumer Team
View the project video:
AI Driven Mobile Speech Coaching App - Performance Support & Training Reinforcement
Company Orai & Mandel Communications
Introduction Date March 21, 2017
Project Website https://www.oraiapp.com/
Why is this project worthy of an award?
A 2017 Workplace Productivity and Communications Technology Report, Webtorials, found that businesses lose an average of $11,000 per employee every year due to ineffective communications and collaboration. WHAT is said and HOW it is said can energize and move important business projects, activities and decisions forward. . . or stop them dead in their tracks. Unskilled and average communicators lose far too often. And poor communications skills are costing businesses millions of dollars every day. One way to address this pain point is to make employees go through LMS style static training content (videos, PDFs) on communication skills development. Although this is scalable, it’s proven not to be effective. On the other hand, hiring a 1:1 speech coach is super effective but not highly scalable across an organization. And industry research shows that acquiring new behavioral skills (versus concepts) requires repetition; people must try a new behavior multiple times before it becomes practiced enough to be comfortable and effective. We sought to create a solution that brings the best of both: effective, yet scalable and offers an easy way to practice and instill a new behavior. Orai partnered with Mandel, a communications coaching company, to create an “A Mobile Speech Coach” that is powered by artificial intelligence. Using Mandel’s communications content, Orai provides instant feedback on the user’s energy, pace and filler words. Users can easily share their recordings with their managers, and Orai even provides accent support for non-native English speakers. The communication skills lessons reinforce traditional training workshop experiences but can also be used as a stand-alone training experience. And when needed, the content can be tailored to the enterprise’s operating environment, so it reflects the operating culture of the company, further cementing long-term behavior change. Today, sales, technical, marketing, finance, IT professionals, managers, and executives from all functional areas in various organizations are using Orai with Mandel methodology inside to think, speak and generate positive results. Sales and marketing professionals practice their value propositions before a critical customer call. IT professionals use Orai before seeking internal funding for their projects and executives practice with Orai before delivering high-stakes presentations. Here’s a testimonial from a Sr. Manager at a large technology company: “I tried out the ORAI app last night for a presentation I am giving next week to a group of CIO/CEO’s and after 4 run throughs, I’ve already cut down on my filler words by 50% and gotten my pauses way better to keep the pace understandable. If any of you have any presentations coming up, I highly recommend trying the app out with them to see how it can help you improve.” Thanks to the combination of new technology, engaging user experience and award-winning communications content, speaking with impact and clarity for any employee is now available.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Being able to generate actionable feedback on a user’s communication skills from a machine was challenging. And what was even harder was to visually display this on a mobile device. We interviewed hundreds of public speakers, speech coaches, public speaking professors on how they give feedback to their learners. We distilled the nuance ways of giving feedback into quantitative methodologies and rules that we could train a machine on. We even read numerous computational linguistics papers on how humans perceive good and bad speech. Simultaneously, we tested several UI/UX flows on how to best present feedback on a small screen. This is still a work in progress and the app that’s live on the App Store is iteration #5! Today with a tap of a button, Orai analyzes your voice, picks up on filler words like um, tells you if youarespeakingtoofast… or.too.slow and provides you a transcript of what you just said - which highlights your varying tone projection… or lack thereof. And very soon, Orai will be able to analyze your posture, body language and facial expressions to provide you with 7-point real-time feedback better than any human could. Orai has been featured in TechCrunch, Fast Company and Wired, and over 100,000 people have downloaded the app across the world. Since launch, Orai has counted more than 100,000 “ums” in people’s speech. And after just 3 sessions, users have improved their communication skills by up to 30%. Last month, Orai was a finalist in Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award.
Who worked on the project?
Danish Dhamani (Co-Founder & CEO, Orai), Paritosh Gupta (Co-Founder & CTO, Orai) and Diane Burgess-Faber (Vice President of Solution Design and Client Engagement, Mandel Communications)
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocX1QEzIey8
aiQ Xfinity Assistant
Company Comcast
Introduction Date November 28, 2017
Project Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Comcast’s Xfinity Assistant is an intelligent virtual assistant that is accessible via My Account Mobile, Comcast’s flagship account management application. It allows customers to ask questions using natural language and receive helpful responses, connect with customer service agents, or directly generate support tickets when appropriate. The Xfinity Assistant delivers immediate assistance for more than 150 troubleshooting, account management, and informational topics, including features like on-demand, DVR, voice remote, channel management, and more. It is transforming Comcast’s customer experience by using machine intelligence and natural language understanding to deliver informed, personalized customer service solutions, while reducing cost and increasing efficacy. This product was launched in November 28, 2017 and has been evolving each week to better serve the Comcast customer base across all lines of business. It will continue to expand in functionality, support coverage, and accessibility into the future as part of the broader Comcast aiQ (pronounced “IQ”) program, designed to intelligently and proactively treat and resolve customer issues. What really makes this product stand out is how it drives a better experience and outcome for 28M+ Comcast customers. The Xfinity Assistant makes the customer’s relationship with Comcast easier by providing solutions based on that customer’s individual account, like which services they subscribe to, and provides feedback to the business about top issues. In addition to our customers, Comcast customer service agents and technicians are empowered with precise contextual data about customers’ network and product health as well as previous interactions - increasing First Time Resolution (FTR). From a platform perspective, Xfinity Assistant is built to quickly ingest content for special events or topics. During the holiday season of 2017, the team implemented help for setting up new devices, like Amazon Echo, gaming consoles, and smart TVs. It also featured a link to track Santa – a delightful option for parents and their children. In 2018, we featured special content for the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics. These types of “surprise and delight” experiences help develop the customer relationship and provide added personality. Coupled with the enhancements to the customer experience, the Xfinity Assistant positively impacts the company’s bottom line. We’re seeing a high number of deflected calls, approximately 100K year-to-date, which indicate that customer issues are being resolved without needing to speak with an agent. Xfinity Assistant solves issues for a highly engaged customer base, and its cutting edge and scalable design will only improve those capabilities over the course of time. It’s been a tremendous achievement for not only our team but the company as a whole.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
There are several key principles that differentiate Xfinity Assistant from traditional customer service solutions. Every interaction is simple, clear, and easy for customers to navigate. This digital relationship, based on that customer’s specific account context, drives a cohesive and personalized experience every time. As the Xfinity Assistant has advanced, its deeper power has come from the ability to be predictive and proactive in troubleshooting a customer’s issue, using artificial intelligence. For example, the product has the ability to identify customers experiencing degraded internet service or notify a customer of an outage in his or her area along with the expected resolution time. While driving toward a seamless digital journey, the Xfinity Assistant can transition customers to support agents using Virtual Hold, but does so at the right time and with less friction – without the need to navigate an IVR and less time on the phone. The product’s innovation lies in its ability to build on a foundation customer interactions and “learn” as it goes. Natural Language Processing (NLP) takes a customer’s utterance and predicts which troubleshooting category within the tool would be most helpful. Over time, the product gets smarter in predicting which path has the highest likelihood of solving the customer’s issue. This allows for automatic-healing, technical escalations, and proactive outbound messaging to customers to assist with issues they may not even yet know they have. All of these features enhance the customer experience tremendously, building confidence in the brand and products.
Who worked on the project?
aiQ Xfinity Assistant Team
View the project video:
Airtable "Blocks"
Why is this project worthy of an award?
In a world filled with single-purpose apps that do one thing well, Airtable has solved the much more difficult design challenge of creating a meta app, or “lego kit,” that empowers other people to design a near-infinite number of useful apps of their own, without ever having to learn how to code. From collaborative editorial planning, to managing global marketing campaigns, to powering the entire back office of an organization, Airtable is empowering non-technical workers from all walks of life to rethink decades old business practices in every industry imaginable. Just to give a few examples: Netflix, Airbnb, and over 40% of the Fortune 1000 — including some of the largest airlines, newsrooms, and fashion houses — are currently using Airtable to power some of their most important teams and initiatives, as are countless small businesses, nonprofits, and creative workers around the globe. So what, exactly, is Airtable? At the highest level, Airtable combines the simplicity of a spreadsheet, with the power of a database. (Stay with me, this gets really interesting.) Cells can fit a lot more than just numbers, including photos and interactive lists. And, users have the option to select from a variety of interfaces and functionalities (called “Blocks”), that can be easily mixed-and-matched to create any custom productivity workflow imaginable. It’s like an app-building lego kit that has taken away all the complexity of coding language. Custom apps that would have, in the past, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to create, and taken months to build by a team of software engineers, can now be made in a matter of days by the end users themselves. What makes Airtable truly unique from a design perspective, beyond the pure technological and design achievement of making software creation massively more accessible, is that it’s unlocking incredible levels of human creativity in a space that often isn’t thought of as “creative.” Building useful tools that empower an industry like photography, or music, is expected, and to be sure, every year there are new incredible design products to empower every artistic vocation imaginable. But Airtable is empowering a creative renaissance in back office work — and that is truly innovative.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
When you think about the world of apps today, there are two ends of the design spectrum: products that are incredibly simple in functionality and user interface (think Uber, you push a button for a car to come get you), and products that are incredibly sophisticated in functionality and user interface (think Photoshop, you have to learn the product before you can harness its true power). Airtable’s design team set out early on to do the impossible, and build an intuitive and easy-to-use interface on top of a powerful and complex software product. They managed to pull off that goal in spades, which is why, if you search “Airtable” on Twitter, you will see an active stream of love letters to the company. To give a few powerful examples of different apps that can be created using different Airtable “Blocks”: with the “SMS Block,” the owner of a non-profit was able to set up a system where she can now select every volunteer in her Airtable database who is based in a specific city, and quickly send them all a text message that a meetup is happening the next day; with the “Mapping Block,” a major film studio was able to set up a powerful custom workflow to track in real time on a map where all of their shoots are happening around the globe, from the availability of equipment rentals to a production’s status; and, with the “Cloud Vision Block,” one of the largest music festivals in the world was able to create an AI-powered lost and found system, where employees now just snap pictures of lost items as they come in, and they’re automatically tagged by color and object type, effectively cutting manual entries and wait time in half. With 27 powerful “Blocks” introduced earlier this year, and dozens more coming, Adobe, Netflix, Insomniac Events, Outdoor Voices, and The City of LA are just a few customers already unlocking the creative potential of Airtable Blocks in transformative ways. There are any number of public heroes making an impact on the world that we all know of and celebrate. But with Blocks, Airtable has opened up a level of behind-the-scenes creative potential that will probably have a much larger impact on our everyday lives, because it has the power to fundamentally change the way any business operates. And putting the tools to do that in someone’s hand, who previously would not have had access to it, is a creative act in itself. We wouldn’t know about Rembrandt if it weren’t for the paintbrush, and we wouldn’t know Chopin if it weren't for the piano. What will we achieve in the future now that the power of software creation as a medium has been made available to everyone?
Who worked on the project?
The Airtable Team
View the project video:
