GiveEmThis.com is an innovative way to get original and relevant gift recommendations for friends. The system connects to your social media and analyzes your friend’s interests based on their likes, dislikes, interests and other data stored in their profile. GiveEmThis.com then recommends original gift ideas relevant to your friend’s areas and interest. Our group was tasked with refining the web app’s branding and UI.

Challenges

As GiveEmThis.com approached it’s launch date, we conducted several UX usability tests with their core consumer set. Many consumers had difficulty navigating their alpha system’s UI and had trouble understanding the purpose/process of the GiveEmThis.com system.

Strategy

Our team recommended and executed a UI redesign around the human-centered research findings in our UX usability testing. The new system mapped a linear user experience for first-time site users and presented a parallel experience for subsequent visits. This experience clearly addressed the purpose of the system, it’s functionality and how a user can provide the necessary information about a friend for accurate results.

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During nine years, the BYU Museum of Art worked to curate a collection of 19th century religious works by the Lutheran master, Carl Bloch. Six months before the show opened, they approached the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration in the Arts at BYU looking for a way to augment the experience of exhibition patrons’ with media artifacts.

Process

Our team worked as both IxD design consultants and creative directors for the Museum. We were invited to participate with the Museum’s team of educators and exhibition designers in crafting the interactive experience for patrons. We applied UX and IxD methodologies to the media augmentation we created for the show.

Challenges

The Carl Bloch show faced a number of conceptual challenges. The show was comprised of a limited number of Bloch’s paintings which revolved around five large altar paintings. Though these altar paintings had never before travelled outside of their native Denmark and Sweden, most patrons to the museum were already familiar with the works due to their frequent reproduction in Utah churches. Despite the limited number of featured works for patrons to view and patrons’ previous experiences with the works, the Museum hoped to engage audiences on average for over an hour. This presented the challenge of capturing the audiences’ attention and creating the tools necessary to prolong a patron’s engagement with the works of art.

Strategy

Our teams determined that in order to prolong the patrons’ engagement with the Bloch paintings, the exhibition would need to encourage visitors to see the works of art in a new light. Our goal was to deconstruct visitor’s contemporary perspectives of the Bloch pieces and recreate—to whatever extent possible—the original, Lutheran worship experience that the paintings were originally meant to enhance. All efforts and media artifacts revolved around this primary goal of transporting our visitors to 19th century Denmark so they could rediscover the Bloch paintings.

Networked Storytelling

It was decided that the layout of the show needed to be designed around a networked storytelling environment where patrons would define their own experience and interaction with the artwork. This was significant detail to account for in the development of media tools to enhance that experience. Media artifacts needed to break from the traditional linear paradigm that is most commonly seen in museum spaces.

Orientation Theatre

The first media artifact we created was a custom-designed orientation theatre and introduction to the cultural and physical context native to Denmark. Working with the museum’s exhibition designers, we constructed a theatre space at the entrance to the show. The imagery and audio shown in this orientation room addressed our objectives of slowing the pace of patrons to the museum and introducing the foreign lens through which we hoped patrons would examine Bloch’s work. The film was designed as a 4 minute loop. Patrons were left to decide when they entered and exited the room.

iPad Tour

A custom-build iPad tour was developed for the museum and carefully crafted as to not distract from the physical experience of viewing Bloch’s paintings. The tour was non-linear, and allowed patrons to dive as deeply into the history, context and meaning of Bloch’s paintings as they desired. Content revolved around the featured altar pieces of the show and included interviews with native Denmark religious leaders, in-depth analysis by art historians, 3d panoramas of the painting’s original context and detailed maps of the paintings pointing out their key symbolism.

Outcome

Between November 2010 and May 2011, the augmented Carl Bloch experience drew over 300,000 patrons to the museum, more than any previous exhibit in the museum’s history. During that time the Museum logged over 90,000 iPad rentals. The average patron spent 40 minutes in the exhibition without and iPad and over 75 minutes with the iPad rental, signifying a significant augmentation to their experience. With the Museum’s minimal $3 iPad rental fee, all costs incurred in media artifact production were recouped before the close of the exhibition.

Background

McCann NY partnered with the BYU Ad Lab seeking social media strategy and conceptual work for their client, Holiday Inn. They had recently commissioned a talented young artist, Kyle Andrews, for work on a TV campaign. When audiences heard Kyle’s music on the Holiday Inn spots, he quickly gained a solid fan base on youtube. McCann NY was looking for the next big step.

Process

Working within strick time and budgetary constraints, our team our team went to work honing in on a social media strategy and possible campaign concepts to augment McCann NY’s work. The McCann team had originally hoped to organize a concert go accelerate the momentum Kyle was gaining. The problem was, a one-night show in NYC wouldn’t do much for Kyle’s longevity. Instead our team recommended creating a virtual concert experience on youtube, coupled with an activity that reflected the lighter themes and fun associated with Kyle’s musical style. We proposed creating a music video of Kyle performing “on stage” in the midst of the world’s largest water balloon fight.

Outcome

Kyle Andrew’s video concert broke the world record for the largest water balloon fight and massed over one million YouTube views in less than a week, a number that is still growing. McCann was able to incorporate our additions to their social media strategy and win a Bronze One Show Pencil, a highly revered advertising award.

In 2007 Droga5 launched the Tap Project as a new approach to charity fundraising for World Water Week. The idea? Pay $1 for what you normally get for free: tap water. In 2010, our team was asked by UNICEF to create and prototype social media extentions to the grass-roots effort.

Process

Delivering a series of social media and media-earning ideas, UNICEF asked for a working prototype of one concept—Tap Duel: an online charity duel where facebook friends publicly bid on the price of a child’s clean water.

Outcome

In three weeks time, our team executed the prototype in time for World Water Week, allowing Facebook users world- wide to duel with their friends and augmenting UNICEF’s PR campaign.

Background

L’Oreal Garnier approached the BYU AdLab, impressed by the school’s track record in international L’oreal Brandstorm Competitions. They asked the advertising program to work with one of their product management and innovation teams to develop line extensions for an international brand.

Methodology

During four months our teams conducted extensive qualitative and quantitative design, consumer and market research regarding possible line extensions and areas for brand and product innovation. This research included 80 exploratory interviews, an online survey with a sample size of 578 individuals, four focus groups (40 total participants), 47 one-on-one interviews, 83 product design interviews, a product name survey (112 respondents) and eight in-store competitive analyses. The data and insights were then compiled for both internal analysis and synthesis as well as final presentation to L’oreal. End deliverables to L’oreal included a 2-hour debriefing of the insights, conclusions and final recommendations, a 50 page compilation of research findings and branded product recommendations (along with product-launch and marketing plans).

Outcomes

Our group presented and pitched new line-extension ideas to the Garnier product management and innovation team in their NYC offices. Recommendations included new line extensions coupled with product launch and marketing plans. The Garnier team was so pleased with our teams efforts they made an additional, generous donation to the advertising program in excess of the cost of the innovation work.