Florida Blue Dental is an entity that has numerous stakeholders, but all aligned in wanting the best experience possible for the users.
This was one of those projects that afforded us the time and resource to conduct true user studies, and devote time to accessibility, on top of the standard concerns for usability and experience.
Below is a quick breakdown of some of the design philosophies involved in creating it.
McDonald’s was preparing to launch their new McCafe line into the highly competitive coffee industry. In order to make an impact, we knew that we had to do something that their competitors weren’t, and still adhere to a tight budget.
With that, came “Happinated”. The primary tactic was to create an interactive flash game to take advantage of the growing female gamer demographic that crossed over into our worker female 18-34 demographic and greatly catered to the worker 18-34 male demographic.
To create a further connection with the intended audience, the game itself was set within a satirized version of the workplace. We poked fun at work birthdays, the boss’s orders, copying machines, and more.
This game created an engagement average of over 3 minutes, and an email signup rate of over 60% of all visitors. This was followed up with an email blast that pushed current promotions, with an extremely high open rate of over 50%. The gaming tactic was a huge success.
The secondary tactic was to implement Twitter to be a customer service tool and an inspirational ambassador. @Happinated (on Twitter) regularly had updates that consisted of funny, G-rated jokes, inspirational thoughts, and updates on McDonald’s offers and events within the Southeast region.
With @Happinated, we were able to drive additional participation to McDonald’s events, push coupon downloads and redemptions, and tackle customer service issues, converting unsatisfied customers, to McDonald’s evangelists.
Overall, McDonald’s is very happy with the performance of this campaign, and this was a great experience for me.
The GAAM Holiday Nerd Market started as another off-shoot of the GAAM Show, with the purpose of supporting the creators and small businesses in our community and culture.
This event was branded with idea of marring the holidays and nerd culture together visually (hence the font selection, color palette, and pixelated items), as well as from an experiential standpoint. Gaming, nerd items, and holiday decorations adorned the market to further establish the theme and intended mindset.
After two successful years, we took a break (as did most of the world), and finally made a welcomed returned in 2022! We made the shift to go crowdfunded and sponsored to achieve a free event for attendees AND for vendors (they were given the opportunity for a full refund after the secondary fundraising goals were hit)!
That was accomplished in less than 6 weeks. The crowdfunding campaign and strategy, the vendor curation, event production, design, and content creation…all in under 6 weeks. We sold out, doubled in attendance size, and utilized a time slot strategy to aid in congestion and attendee experience, while also pushing a vendor based agenda to assist in sales.
Below is a quick breakdown of the site and some of the philosophy behind it.
Thank all of your for your help in making GAAM Gladiators: Esports Championship happen. 🙌 Not only was this a huge step forward for Esports in Jacksonville, but this was also a huge step forward in accessibility, with Katie McDaniels being the first sign language interpreter signing for the GAAM livestream of the finals of an esports event! 💖
Be proud of your competitors, your commentators, your friends, your fellow gamers, your supporters, your city, of people. You all helped to create something truly special.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the site and how it transitioned from an event to an online gaming league
This was the initial promo video introducing the concept to our audience
Below you can see how the initial logo and the sword concept became married throughout the event, especially in the viral winners announcements.
And finally, the culmination of the hard work put in by everybody.
Thank you to Jeffrey Enriquez for putting together such a great video capturing what the event was about.
This app was designed to make the process of filing a claim much easier on the user and on the employee working on the filed claimed. With the camera and GPS enabled, it made the extremely easy for the user to document the claim and send the data over for an insurance agent.
Also, with the built in Agent finder and GPS working in concert, we were able to pair the user up with the closest available agent.
At the end of the whole process, the information was sent over to a database and filed for the insurance agent and would then be entered into the history of the policy.
This was a HUGE step forward for us, as previous claims were being filed by voice or manually written. It was also important as this was phase 1 of an app that could eventually have VIN validation, iImage based license verification, and tons of other cool features that would make the lives of all parties involved easier. 🙂
UI/UX Observations
One important thing to note was that after user experience studies, we decided to make the “progression” button, near the full width of the screen and up a few inches from the bottom. It looked a little odd at first, as we’re so used to seeing an item like that weighted towards near the bottom of the page. HOWEVER, we found that the location of the thumb made it uncomfortable to bend one’s thumb all the way to the bottom of the phone.
We didn’t replicate this on the tablet version, as the way people used the tablet was very different from the phone. Typically, the pointer finger was being used to execute actions, and that finger was usually founder hovering a few inches up and above the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
Space GAAM was our biggest production to date. The cosplay cast was almost as huge as the theme! 😀
As with each GAAM Show, a new theme was created, with content and branding to match and align with the theme.”
However, with a move to a new venue, that was over double the size of the previous, new obstacles arose in terms of how to create, move, set-up, and breakdown the various environments/activation spots with a much bigger space (around 50,000 square feet).
The team stepped up, and team leaders were assigned to different themes and rooms, with others to assist.
Brittani did a fantastic job directing the art murals, and community crafting days were employed not only to engage the community, but also to get additional help in creating items needed for the event.
Gaming stations dedicated to Halo, rooms themed to Star Fox and Metroid, and so many nods were given to the various sci-fi games that have become a part of our culture.
Artists and gaming companies from all over the world contributed their work to be auctioned off for charity during our Charity Art Auction, raising several thousand for various causes.
The biggest moment, by far, had to be when Jay McGowan (“Whoot There It Is,” “Tootsee Roll,” “Space Jam,” and “Come on Ride the Train,”) performed “Space Jam/GAAM” as a surprise performance for the attendees. He truly cares about his city, and the love was definitely felt as he performed that night.
It seems as though every large corporation uses Sharepoint, but nobody is really happy with the ui/ux of it. It was the same case with Availity, so we decided to redesign the Employee Benefits section of the Sharepoint.
Here was the old layout…
There were a lot of problems with the old layout.
1) TOO MANY NAVS!
There’s at least THREE navs in this layout. That’s if you don’t include the breadcrumb nav, the top ribbon, and the search bar.
2) Oddly placed header image.
That image doesn’t even fit the page properly.
3) Odd CTA. Almost nobody ever sees the ADP icon.
It’s so far over to the right, and the color is too desaturated to subconsciously create visual importance.
So here’s what I did…
The architecture of the site was completely revamped. We re-organized all of the content and streamlined everything. We also adopted a responsive layout for mobile users, and a more app-centric grid UI as most of the users were tech savvy (and pretty much everybody uses apps on their phone at this point).
This approach was applied throughout the site. Even sub-sections got their own iconic representation.
Everybody applauded the move to a fully iconic based UI. 🙂 I tried to make sure everything was symbolic and on brand, but just a little bit different to re-iterate the fact that this was a departure from the old experience.
Also, the search bar was given much more priority, and additional items such as the recycling bin, the ability to “like” pages, and other options were stripped away, as data showed that they were seldom used, and they seem to just add to user confusion.
Lastly, a drop down nav was implemented, as well as an active state for the current section that both reinforce the brand and add more awareness to exactly where the user is.
The end result was a happy department, happier users, and far less calls and emails asking where content was). 🙂
JaxLive 2005 was created to support the Super Bowl party hosted by Alicia Keys. After the success of FTGU, I was given the opportunity to work on another project that incorporated a lot of illustration, animation, and music, during a very short turn around time.
Sadly, it has been wiped from the Internet for the most part. 🙁
Frum Tha Ground Up was a Jacksonville based youth iniative, with Alicia Keys serving on it’s board. They were looking to take the organization to the next level and wanted to revamp their presence online. I was brought in to help the team at Hardball design and build the new digital presence for FTGU, but the project ended up being so much more than that!
On top of simply redesigning their site, we put together and implemented strategies and tactics concerning user content generation, message boards, and tying in real world events to online. ( “Social media” in 2004. 🙂 )
This site ended up becoming a SXSW finalist, won countless of other awards, and helped to procured addtional funding from sponsors to aid the youth and other initiatives.
I will always look back at this project with thanks.
