Design Jams
solving business and design challenges through creativity and collaboration.
Design Jams are an opportunity for teams to gather in-person to focus on solving business and design challenges through a customer-focused, collaborative approach. The additional benefits are that they break down barriers, inspire creativity and intense collaboration, and help build an engaging design culture.
Creating ownership in a new design system
The first Design Jam was used to stress test the new digital design system by applying the new UI toolkit to marketing, merchandising, and promotional pages. Not only would this give teams hands-on experience working with the design system, but it would also uncover gaps and areas for improvement.
This event covered three days with teams, comprised of a designer, prototyper, and a writer, located in the key studios across the organization. Teams were given UI toolkit, a visual style guide, and assigned pages. Each day began with a group kick-off and ended with a check-in review and discussion. The final day was devoted to presentations showcasing before and after treatments of the new design system.
Applying new techniques to multiple business challenges
This Design Jam focused on introducing the design sprint methodology to three current business challenges. Like other Design Jams, it served as an effective vehicle for building design culture and creative collaboration. It also expanded dramatically to include over 80 participants comprising 10 teams of designers, writers, prototypers, content strategists, researchers, business partners along with senior executives and agency partners.
The goal was for the cross-functional innovation teams to tackle current business challenges - starting from user-centered, design thinking and ideation sessions and evolve through collaborative creative development and functional prototypes. The last day featured a celebration and presentation of the work to a team of guest judges.