from zero to hero in four weeks
how to run on thin ice
we had sort of a challenge
guys, we need to come up with something amazing for our largest annual event. it has to showcase the very essence of our digital vision
this was a non negotiable request from our GM. in these moments you have two bad options, first to nod and leave, second to ask whether he already has something in his mind. we tossed the virtual coin and it turned to be the later, there was no hesitation in the answer, in less than a blink of an eye we already knew that it has to be something in the virtual reality.
it didn’t matter that we have never done anything in vr. actually we had one dev guy who built some silly game in unity for fun, but this wasn’t our lucky day, that was his last day in the team.
our team is designed to solve critical challenges very quickly, but this time we had four weeks to come up with something that can be demonstrated in front of 700 people on a 65m wide led wall.
this is by design the most perfect setup for a creative block. indeed we have been stuck with very cliche ideas for a week or so without any chance to come up with something exceptional we expected from ourselves. after several non performing workshops we raised the bar and put ourselves in an even bigger time pressure: let’s run a crazy 8 with the core team.
if you have never done it, this is a creativity booster putting you in a very special mental state due to its extreme time pressure: come up with 8 completely different ideas in 8 minutes total, 1 minute each with a hard stop. this is when your unconscious takes control over your conscious thinking preparing you to come up with diverse and sometimes very extreme ideas from very deep in your mind.
you can be absolutely sure that you are doing it well when #1 you hear people murmuring this is fucking insane after 3–4 rounds and #2 once you uncover the sketches an intense chaotic iteration discussion takes place to improve each others’ ideas
we had all sort of wild ideas including a 3d pacman, a roller coaster, classic space invaders game, the elf factory from ben and holly’s little kingdom, zack and quack, super mario bros. yep, most of us are fathers with very little children
after a good 15 minutes discussion it became evident that our super votes were placed on a single sketch that seemed to be the most promising and realistic for this challenge, the one below
however most of the details were yet to be figured out we already knew that we are on the track and the final version will
- represent new kind of financial aggregations in 3D
enable the users to immediately understand the most important about their finances - come up with actionable insights/hints/challenges
eventually challenge the user to move in the direction of a sustainable financial life
we had and idea and now we were talking. we were after a visual and interaction design that could work in 3D as an immersive financial experience. we went through all sort of inspirations and finally one of us hit the bull’s eye and whispered pop-up book.
it immediately unlocked some childhood memories and we hoped that it is going to to shift our users from frustrating or simply boring banking apps to an exciting virtual reality that can pretty much change how the average user feels about and interacts with their own financial institutes.
we instinctively reached out for the best real life memories and virtual pop up books, but found very little inspiration in them. we eventually found two concepts that stand out from the mass of cliches, toyota’s stories of better concept and peronio by ovni studios and tried to come up with something of the same level
lucky enough we have amazing designers in the team who came up with the first drafts in no time. needless to say we were sold.
while the interactions and visual assets were designed few of us sat together to define the worlds, that will stand as the pages of the book. each covering certain important aspects from all of our financial lives. we were very hard to be stopped at this stage, finally came up with a lot more than we could implement. filtering out was painful, but we have been confident that we can extend the scope later on if our concept gets positive feedback and reached a good general acceptance. this was the scope of our minimum lovable product
coming up with the right visuals, finding the perfect copy, selecting the best voice actor, picking the right interaction spots, defining the happy path, sorting out tiny details, it was our well known battlefield. we were heavily focusing on making something that is not only a gimmick that lasts for 30 seconds, but laying down the groundwork for sustainable financial lives. we also had to keep in mind not being intrusive, but we have managed to find a good balance between making an impact and letting the users live the life of their own. just to give you some ideas, one of the sweet spots were at online store purchases that honestly we are all addicted to. instead of saying things like don’t buy anything for a week, don’t buy for 3 days in a row we came up with an idea of giving the user a challenge: don’t kill your dreams, just fight the unnecessary. put everything on wishlist, anything you are to impulse purchase, let it rest in your basket and do the checkout once a week with a clear mind. this is a pretty good example how do we try to find the right balance
we had a few worlds ready, but we still needed to validate our flow, why/when/how on earth would someone take the viewer on her head? we a/b tested a few versions and finally stayed with a digital assistant conversation that suggests to move from chat to the 3D world in order to grab their attention and entertain/educate/support the users in a very engaging way
we used all of our internally available staff and hired 3D experts to build the world we dreamt of. there were very difficult and inspiring moments during the 3 week dev sprint, but this story is not about the development rather the rapid ideation and concept creation
eventually the demo was amazing. we took a few videos for testimonials and we did not even had to ask a single question just point the camera to their smiling faces awakening their childhood curiosity that is the most a financial app could expect, a perfect showcase of our innovation lab
