Case Studies
HiMSS Experience Design | NewWave
About the Client: NewWave is a globally-recognized, federally-certified provider of innovative business solutions for government and industry.
Users/Audience: HiMSS attendees and vendors, generally healthcare providers, patients and payers interested in interoperable, value-based care possibilities through data and technology. Among these user groups, the personas range between those who prefer an analog conference experience with speakers and hand-outs, to those who would prefer not to interact with vendors but will want to see dynamic digital information, minimal paper foot trail and plenty of resources they can follow up on later on their own.
HiMSS 2020
Project Details: For the 2020 show in Orlando, the team would again come together to develop audience personas, focal areas that we’d need to showcase with the key products and engineering that NewWave needed to get the word out on. This year’s focus was to be zeroed in on the SAFHIR interoperability product, with side story lines about partnerships with CMS, Microsoft, Looker and Databricks.
My Contribution: As Creative Director, my role was to oversee and connect the dots between the experience design of all facets of the event brand interactions in NewWave’s multi-level tradeshow booth. This year we had double the real estate, and so I designed a multi-level booth with a mind to the visitor foot traffic, demos and presentation schedules, and promotional events, alongside our amazingly detail-oriented project coordinator. With the recent release of Adobe Aero, in combination with Adobe Dimension for creating custom 3D elements, my team and I designed an augmented reality experience with a trivia game for the digital crowd to enjoy. Visitors would be simply handed an iPad through which they could view another side to the booth, that would have hanging trivia cards under spinning, iridescent gems, reminiscent of the gold coins dangling mid-air in Mario games when we were kids. They would also have a surprise and delight moment when they looked up to discover an abstract art sculpture that used intertwining waves to represent data interoperability.
The facade of the booth was kept simplistic in its analog experience, to highlight the excitement of discovering additional elements in AR. There were 7 mounted screens throughout, showcasing key storylines in with slowly morphing digital watercolor backgrounds, created in Adobe Fresco, and we made simplistic decisions on the promotional swag and minimalist cards with QR codes that would be handed out (to limit the paper trail). A screen printer was scheduled to come to the booth to create custom printed t-shirt giveaways with our interoperability messaging, a sequin tote bag was our featured giveaway alongside laptop stickers, and one strip of the back wall was covered in teal/purple sequin fabric to give a literal touchpoint to cause people to want to reach out and physically interact with us as they rounded the back of the booth.
I personally designed the tradeshow booth, 3D digital sculpture, augmented reality experience, social media campaign ads, selfie props, infographics, video lower thirds and title screens, and digitally-painted video backgrounds, while providing art direction for the other work being handled by talented team members and production vendors, to include motion graphics videos, QR cards, gated web landing pages, staff event t-shirts, promotional screen print tee, and touch screen for trivia and deeper info about each key story line being showcased.
Outcomes: This year was catastrophic on so many levels, as the COVID-19 pandemic caused mass cancellations of large gatherings. This HiMSS show was scheduled in the first weeks of March 2020, which is now an infamous date in history. My team had literally finished the very last task for this event and were preparing to load up any final physical items to carry with us on the plane that weekend, since all else had been shipped to Florida in advance, when we found out that the large corporate sponsors like Microsoft, Databricks, Looker, CMS, etc. were pulling out of the show for safety concerns. We followed suit, and in hind-sight, it was the right decision to make, but it was devastating in the moment. We’ve been able to repurpose the videos and storytelling to some degree.
HiMSS 2019
My Contribution: For the 2019 show in Orlando, the Marketing team led the preparations and I was just a side contributor who also attended the show in person to network and connect our SMEs with key booth visitors. I collaborated with team to design staff apparel (a different t-shirt per day, to align with story themes), and my main contribution was an interactive touchscreen that was displayed on multiple Surface Studios throughout the booth, capitalizing on the Champions of Health theme by introducing a team rowing concept. Personas, user journeys and wireframes were generated, leading to a user interface that was informational for the medical providers, payers and patients who visited the booth. All messaging and imagery was aligned with rack cards, promotional items, landing page content and videos created by the Marketing team.
HiMSS 2018
My Contribution: HiMSS 2018 took place in Las Vegas. The Marketing team led the preparations and I contributed multi-faceted, tradeshow exhibit design, as well as a brand new business card design with 4 color choice options for the staff attendees. I was a Senior Designer in a the Business Development department, so this was an above-and-beyond contribution of my broader skillset for the team.
