Tableau Live Conference 2016

Flow Documentation • Wireframes • Invision Prototype • Final Mockups

As the sole UX Designer for Tri-Digital I took lead on this client facing project to create a content hosting website for “Tableau Conference Live 2016”. I worked with the client to get their approval on deliverables during the design process, and then worked with my companies internal development team to get the platform built and tested by the conference deadline. 

Kickoff

In the initial kickoff meeting I met with head of marketing, conference organizers, graphic designers and developers from the Tableau team. Their requirements were quite simple: the website must be responsive, must allow users to preview content before creating an account and must follow brand guidelines. 

In the week following the kickoff meeting I started going through documentation that the team had provided and organizing types of information that the conference would cover. From this I was able to create a flow diagram that I shared with the Tableau team. This was approved and I next moved to wireframes.

Wireframing & Prototyping

From my wireframes I created a simple click through Axure prototype over to the team for feedback. They requested some metadata changes having to do with order of speakers and data that would display after selecting a speaker. I made the updates and got the approval to start working with their graphic design team on the site branding and visual design.

Visual Design

I was given a Tableau conference style guide. It was obviously built for print and not digital. The rule was to use at least two conference approved colors and one pattern on each page. This felt overwhelming to me and I tried to dilute the colors with lots of white space. I got feedback that the colors were not ‘poping’ enough. I ended up taking a similar approach to what I’d seen on Ted Talks and Netflixs and substituting my use of white space for black space. It was agreed that this was more inline with the provided Style Guide. I was able to move onto redlines and worked with development to QA the designs that were built before passing the final product onto the client.

Results & Learnings

The Conference went off without a hitch. Thousands of users consumed the videos and interacted with the Live Conference Platform. Tableau was so happy with the results that they mentioned that they would likely be working with Tri-Digital again for their 2017 Conference site.

If I were to do this over again I would have pushed harder on the style guide from as soon as I saw it. The UX work flowed well but the UI still felt overwhelming to me. I really don’t think that the style guide was ever intended to be used for digital. I’ve since learned how to better communicate with clients and push back on decisions that will result in a less than ideal product. I would have liked to have found a happy middle ground for using the clients look but not overwhelming the end user with use of flashy colors and images. The focus should have been on the content rather than the branding. That said, this was still a great experience for me working with an external client on a tight timeline while keeping the client happy.