In 2014, IBM faced a challenge: how could they make their technical support services education program more engaging and enjoyable for their business partners and employees?
They wanted to develop an app to provide a fun and interactive learning experience, for the subject was not inherently interesting.
We were asked to rise to the challenge and create an engaging gamified application suite that effectively educated IBM’s business partners and employees on the relationship between hardware, software, and technical support services excitingly.
CLIENT
IBM CH (TSS EDU)
ROLES
Product management, Information design, UX/UI engineering, deployment, marketing & expansion of the SAS product.
PLATFORMS
SaaS APP for Online & Mobile (iPad)
TOOLS
Design: Figma, InVision Freehand, Adobe XD, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Visio, Unity 3D
METHODS
Information Architecture, Use Cases, Personas, User Flow, Surveys/Interviews, Design Thinking, Design Doc/System, UI, A/B testing, Identity/Branding, Marketing, Usability Testing, and Customer Interaction Analytics
DURATION
Design:Figma, InVision Freehand, Adobe XD, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Visio, Unity 3D
The project was intended as a marketing and educational training system for IBM business partners and the internal sales team.
It utilized simulation and real-time 3D graphics to present IBM components and Technical Support Services in a novel and innovative fashion.
The purpose of Simulcation Datacenter was to instruct participants on a corporate data center’s comprehensive operation, including software and hardware decisions, business directives, and objectives. My previous experience designing successful entertainment and simulation digital products earned me the role of product design lead on the project.
For the design phase, we provided the application concept design, project planning, and documentation. Both for business development and product definition. With the approval of the pilot project, we provided full design and production of the applications, cloud deployment, and management of the deployment servers. In addition, we provided education modules and contest awards to IBM and business partners.
The application suite goal for IBM is to educate the complicated relationship between hardware, software, and services in a safe 3D simulated business environment. Designed for both internal and external education programs, the app suite also highlighted new services and product offerings from IBM.
We created a simple modular system for the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) in Unity 3D, which is our front-end interface. To ensure the best possible performance on mobile devices and seamless integration with the 3D environment, we opted for vector-based graphics instead of traditional pixel-based graphics.
With a data center at its core, the learner can experience specific education content in the environment and explore the implications and options around the presented content. In this way, the learner gets a ‘close to life’ experience of using products and/or services and safely experiences the positive as well as the potential risks that a real-life customer may encounter.
To engage the audience on multiple levels, the education system was expanded with a points and goal system. Countdown timers and competition leaderboards matched with an external award system allowed for team goals and competitions tracked online and displayed via social media. This resulted in viral application growth within teams.
We use cookies to see how our site is performing. See our privacy policy to see what information we gather.
Join us for an exclusive look at trends and tools from the AI generative world and online digital design with our newsletter, curated for clients and colleagues of Crown ADAM AG.