2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Background

A gateway to the world’s greatest show: The Expo 2020 Dubai website is the foundational platform and window for the world to learn, see, understand, purchase, and plan their visit to the ‘World’s Greatest Show’. Required to be all encompassing with vast & varied information pertaining to the Expo event, the website also needs to inspire, influence and convert 15 million future visitors from all over the world – B2B, B2C and B2G – into making 25 million visits. It needs to convey the values of Expo, befitting of the world’s greatest show, for those who will experience Expo from afar. A living platform: The website will continue to evolve with Expo through the journey of pre-event, during-, and the post-Expo legacy phase, while always adapting to its new living purpose.

Describe the strategy

What’s universal, that transcends cultural and geographical boundaries? Intuitive access and multigenerational UX. We needed to design a user interface that responds to our human perceptual, cognitive, manipulative and social abilities, while amplifying Expo 2020’s goal of connecting minds to create the future. Intuitive design for everyone: With 25 million visits expected at Expo, from 190+ countries and people from all walks of life, we needed to design an appealing, engaging and useful platform for 5-year olds, to 85-year olds, and for people of determination. These were our guiding principles. Beyond WIMP (windows, icons, menus, point-and-click devices), the greatest challenge in technology lies in our ability to cater to human capabilities. Data-centric, human centered design informed our strategy to appeal to both B2B and B2C demographics from across the world.

Describe the execution

Relevant to all: Every component of the website was assessed against the criteria of Relevance for All. Features and functionality were defined and prioritized based on the perceived and expected value. Living design: Since the initiation of the project in January 2019 - January 2020 we have compiled: - Design component library with over 60 unique building blocks to assemble 18 mobile friendly responsive master templates - Living UI toolkit with over 120 front-end mobile ready components, complete with micro-interactions and animations - Visualization guide highlighting meaningful and actionable analytics data - Client-ready Sitecore-enabled platform to manage the website as Expo moves closer to launch Thereafter, we moved into a cycle of continuous delivery, improving on existing elements and creating new functionality and experiences.

List the results

Since the launch of the new consumer-facing website in September 2019, we have seen: • 1150% increase in monthly page views • 900% increase in users per month • 30% increase in visitors’ countries of origin • Greater parity in gender balance of visitors The website is also acting as a central content hub for media and participant portal, also developed and maintained by us on ground.