1.5 Billion Dollars of Pipeline

Salesforce's Biggest Event

Project Overview

Client: Salesforce
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‍Duration: Ongoing
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‍Team: Product Manager, Engineers, Data Analysts, Customer Success Advocates, and myself
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‍Objective: Make sure the Dreamforce site is amazing and no one talks badly about it - no seriously, this was the guiding principle

The Challenge

No, you read that right. 1.5 Billion Dollars of pipe depended specifically on this website that only needed to exist for three days.

The main challenge was transitioning from Open CMS to AEM with no existing components, UX/UI elements, or prior experience with the platform.

Additionally, Dreamforce 2016 was expected to sell out for the first time, requiring new registration and notification systems.

This year's site had to be built from scratch with a brand new development team, and I was the sole designer.

The Approach

To tackle these challenges, I ensured open collaboration with the development team and stakeholders from the start.

We had a ticking clock, literally, that was the constant reminder of the time we had left.

We knew that we had to take all the learnings from previous years, and innovate the experience based on feedback from users.

This approach facilitated rapid learning and integration of AEM's capabilities into the design process.

Discovery

We did a lot of internal interviews, and relied heavily on the feedback and support from the Strategy Team.

They had a considerable amount of data and feedback that they were able to give us.

We also worked with the product teams to help refine the major needs.

We identified the following main issues.

001

Registration: Registration needed a full overhaul as well as the inclusion of two new ticket types and the new "sold out" state.

002

Video / Audio: People needed to watch important events and workshops, but getting into them is near impossible some times, and when you do, you may not be able to hear everything.

003

Key Pages Transitioning: Multiple pags needed to transition as the event did. Updating almost in real time to react to users and events.

When we approached the Dev team to talk about the platform we hit a major snag.
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Many previous modules and features were not feasible in AEM.

This required rapid design iterations to adapt to AEM's constraints. It significantly changed the build needed for registration flow and video sections.

We also needed to fully rebuild the ticketing flows, and many of he internal pages for events and schedules.

Define

We had a lot of data to work from, but since it was a new platform we had to be very nimble.

Through rapid design sprints we worked on following key areas for redesign:

001

Registration Flow: Overhaul to make the process quicker and easier

002

Video Section: Improved viewing experience across multiple live channels

003

Keynotes Page: Enhanced prominence for videos

004

General Module Refreshes: Updates to various modules based on new design guidelines

Ideation / Design

We used the best wires rom the raid iteration to test and landed on a single vision to build the high quality wires from.

I created high-fidelity wireframes in collaboration with developers. We then ran a few iterative design sprints with quick turnarounds to accommodate new requirements.

During this whole process we worked very closely with the dev team. We integrated live feedback from dev team to ensure feasibility.

We built the following based on all the work we had compelted.

Key Features

001

Streamlined Registration Process: Simplified steps to improve user experience, added the "sold out" state and crated new ticket types.

002

Enhanced Video Section: Better layout for easier navigation and viewing

003

Prominent Keynotes Page: Clearer presentation of key content

004

Waitlist System: Introduced to manage issues with over-registration and collect additional leads for waitlist & marketing purposes. (This was my idea to help calm some people who may have been upset by the "sold out" state)

Testing /Validation

Faced a major last-minute redesign for the landing page to fit the new "Trailhead / Lightning / Trailblazer" theme.

As well as integrate the Lightening UI system into the platform for the first time.

I also implemented a waitlist system to handle the anticipated sellout, which was well-received by stakeholders and helped collect additional leads.

82%

Approval Rating
with users

100,000

Active Users
At Any Time

New Features Developed

New Design Libraries Created For Dreamforce

Conclusion & Next Steps

Dreamforce 2016's website was successfully completed within the tight timeline, despite numerous challenges.

The waitlist system effectively managed over-registration and enhanced user satisfaction.

People were extremely happy with the expereince, and gushed over the stability, and the overall useability across mobile, tablet and desktop.

By maintaining open communication and rapid iteration, we delivered a highly functional and user-friendly website for Dreamforce 2016, ensuring a seamless experience for users and meeting all business objectives.

And NOBODY complained... in a meaningful way. We didnt get one nasty tweet, bad article, or general complaint about the site that year.

Future plan

001

Ongoing Collaboration: Continue close collaboration with development and business teams for next year's event

002

User Feedback Integration: Gather and analyze user feedback from Dreamforce to inform future improvements

003

Platform Optimization: Further refine AEM capabilities and explore new features for upcoming projects