ADOBE CREATIVE JAM + OMNICOM WEB APP
Visionary DE&I solution for an agency network.
ROLE
Team Captain/Sole Designer
KEY SKILLS
Workshop Facilitation
Multi-discipline Team Collaboration
Concept Ideation
UI & Interaction Design
Prototyping
Nerves of Steel
TIMELINE
6 Days
TOOLS
Miro
Adobe XD
THE CHALLENGE
2020 has seen the worst that corporate DE&I initiatives have had to offer: performative posts, impersonal training sessions, woke-washed empty promises. My team was tasked to create a desktop app that aims to democratize solutions and bring radical transparency to the ever evolving DE&I related issues within the Omnicom network.
How might Omnicom democratize diversity and inclusion training and help hold themselves accountable to the goals they’ve set?
THE PROCESS
As part of a hack-a-thon hosted by Adobe and Omnicom Worldwide, this desktop app was concepted and developed in five days.
Collaborating with five multi-disciplinary team members, the concept we created won third place out of 20 submissions in the Adobe Creative Jam Live competition.
THE RESEARCH
As part of the briefing process, Adobe and Omnicom leadership provided insights to the employee network and examples of behavior-changing DE&I solutions. The lead strategist in my group was able to mine additional supporting data that ultimately helped fuel the final solution. Her findings were interpreted into a useable framework for our team to digest:
THE TRUTH OF THE MOMENT
Many organizations have been haphazardly creating DE&I committees, in a woke-washed performative act to current events.
THE TRUTH OF THE BRAND (OMNICOM)
Global and internal agency rivalries run rampant, creating disconnection and distancing of individuals, limiting knowledge sharing.
THE TRUTH OF THE AUDIENCE
A parallel pandemic is happening – not only are POC experiencing the COVID pandemic, but they are also experiencing greater workplace alienation from working from home, creating a continued blurred sense of a “work self” and one’s true self.
How might we offer greater transparency to DE&I issues that Omnicom faces and connect individuals across networks to find answers, together?
THE PLAN: BRAINSTORMING WORKSHOPS
This project allowed for blue-sky thinking. To break free of any pre-conceived solutions and lessen bias, my fellow Experience Design Director and myself collaborated on facilitating a series of workshop exercises to get our team going for the first three days of the event.
First Exercise – The Sailboat: Helping the team imagine where we’re going and what may be holding us back.
We planned several exercises for these half-day workshops. Each varied in approach to promote the opportunity for:
Individual and group brainstorming
Anonymous voting and categorizing exercises to limit group-think
Broad thinking to narrowed focus of a singular idea to lead us towards prototype and design production.
Amassing Solutions: Round-robin approach.
Mapping Out the Experience: Taking top ideas and taking a pass at imagining the full experience and engagement expectations.
THE PLAN: USER FLOWS & WIREFRAMES
Once the team aligned on a singular direction, we set to work on actualizing the experience. As a group, we worked together on the following steps fluidly in a live whiteboarding app.
1. DEVELOPED USER FLOW
Identifying the critical steps a user would take, moving from awareness to evangelist.
2. DEVELOPED NARRATIVE
Based on the flow, we worked on a creative layer to bring more life to the experience.
3. DEVELOPED WIREFRAMES
Inferring layout, content, and imagery direction.
DESIGN & PROTOTYPE
As the sole visual designer on the team, I was responsible for building out the design and prototype with less than 48 hrs. left on the deadline countdown. With all the planning and discussion, I was able to quickly create a unique design that helped support the well thought out flow and narrative.
This solution calls back on the original user insights of finding a unique DE&I focused solution that connects individuals between agencies through radical transparency with a little healthy competition for social change.
FOR PASSIVE USERS
The app home screen acts as a data visualization of the DE&I related conversations happening within the network, creating a sense of transparency.
FOR ENGAGED USERS
May participate in pre-existing conversations and inter-agency challenges, creating a sense of connectedness.
FOR EVANGELISTS/DRIVING USERS
May start their own conversations and even reach out to give a lending hand, creating a sense of democratization of efforts.
Next Case Studies
AGILE PROCESS • RESEARCH • STRATEGY • WIREFRAMES • WEB DESIGN
Bringing awareness to a new standard of health & safety.
RESEARCH • TESTING STRATEGY • WEB DESIGN
Small, continuous, incremental updates drive big results.
RESEARCH • WIREFRAMES • WEB DESIGN • PROTOTYPE
Simplifying the discovery and purchase of thousands of lab equipment products.