AIGA
Design, Development
After the success of our first app in 2011, AIGA asked us to design and develop an app for their national design conference in Minneapolis in 2013. In the past, AIGA’s conference websites and apps existed as separate products with separate content management systems, making integration more difficult and limiting the app’s usefulness.
We designed a unique interface and simplified the content strategy to maximize screen real estate and focus on easy access to the latest information, including any important updates to venue or events schedule.
We also developed a custom set of icons and 3D map illustrations to help conference attendees get from venue to venue and enjoy the many sights and attractions of Minneapolis.
With Head, Heart & Hand, we seamlessly integrated the native iOS app with the conference website, allowing AIGA to update content in one CMS while pushing changes directly to the app and the website simultaneously.
This approach enabled AIGA to reduce its reliance on print materials, allowing real-time updates to conference details and eliminating the potential for conflicting information between print and online information.
In collaboration with Wolff Olins, we developed a prototype that reimagines how users can interact with the news with USA Today. As Wolff Olins closed in on their final design proposal to change the outdated USA Today logo to its new blue dot, they brought us in to help show how flexible that simple blue dot could really become, especially in an interactive environment.
The app prototype uses the now-iconic USA Today blue dot as a jumping-off point for the primary visual navigation tool – a pie chart color-coded by news topic. Users can browse using the pie chart, viewing stories by date or popularity, and dive into individual news stories as they like. Besides the fully visual navigation, the app features an expanded list-based navigation featuring headlines and drop-down menus for easy browsing
We completed the project in just 10 days, showing how our lean methodology and integrated team can build usable products quickly. We’re are often asked to experiment with unproven and innovative tech ideas through rapid prototyping and close collaboration with clients and other agencies, which helps to test new ideas before they go through a lengthy and expensive development cycle.