TEDxSFU is an annual independently organised TED conference at Simon Fraser University. As the creative director of the 2021 iteration of the event, I was tasked with design and production of a microsite promotion campaign.

Team

A taste of the conference

Through interviewing stakeholders, we found that speakers and their topics were the major motivating factor for attendance. With that in mind, our strategy prioritises surfacing the featured speakers in order to intrigue the potential attendees.

Informed by user testing, the content features a collection of suspenseful, fast-paced, trailer-style interviews. This allows the site visitors experience the speaker's content before purchasing the tickets.

Touchpoints

The speaker-focused content strategy was maintained across multiple communication channels. Through these external artifacts, curious individuals are encouraged to learn about the speakers on the website.

Expressive interaction

We extended the existing TED branding expressive potential by introducing a motion language that inspired by petal — a nod to the conference theme "bloom". When tastefully applied, the gentle staggering motion soften the rather cold and precise modernist visuals.

Testing & iteration

Before development, I led a remote formative user research on the prototype with 6 university students. We also asked a middle-aged parent with visual impairment to participate with the intent of stress testing the system's usability. Major wins include:

• 1
  Think-aloud exercise indicated that users mostly had little trouble understanding the interface and navigating the microsite. The result was supported by a decent score on the System Usability Scale (SUS) survey.
• 2
  In the five-seconds-test, users find the presentation attractive with keyword "professional" cited frequently. Overall, the approach of prioritising speakers and topics on the microsite was well received.