Client: Hallmark Netherlands (Hallmark Cards)

Hallmark Cards came to us, students from the UX Design program, with the goal of designing a Hallmark-like gift-giving experience that combines their interactive digital and physical cards and a digital platform to be able to order all this. Their target audience was to include the young audience of digital natives and attract them into using these new interactive ways of gift-giving.

Goal:

Conduct user research, user test it, prototype digital platform of buying the gift for your friend, and the digital onboarding it goes along with that. It also was necessary to design the product (interactive card) and customize its design based on the user's insights about his interests. 

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To highlight the design process behind this project, work was split between research, user testing, and prototyping the final product.

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1. Research

Conducted ethnographic research on the target user. 

Used research methods:

• User observation

• Ethnographic Interview

• Collage drawing

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By using these UX research methods (inspired by the IDEO research kit) I was able to gain a deeper understanding of my user's interests, what would make an immersive and engaging gift receiving experience for him and how to approach the digital onboarding when designing the whole interface of the platform.

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User Testing:

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Give the user a gift in the form of a box, full of all his interests, and see how he reacts to the overall experience and which elements made his experience engaging.

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The test had in mind to see how the user would react to seeing all his interests put in a box. The research had shown insights that he liked puzzles, adventure traveling, and also experiences involving social activities with his friends. 

The factors of engagement - immersiveness and playfulness as well as the feeling of relatedness and sense of accomplishment were identified as key in fulfilling the goal of making him the most enjoyable experience. 

The test confirmed all these insights to be true and the physical aspect of him having to open an actual box full of items close to his interests. A decision was made to incorporate the interactive card that Hallmark sends to also be a custom box that will show the proposed gift in the form of actual props. 

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2. Design Phase

The main parts of this project were the design of:

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• Digital platform for sending the gift 

• Digital key that connects to the digital unwrapping of the digital card

• Physical card together with immersive gift box

• Design Pitch with the whole process displayed

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Digital platform:

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Interactive card and experience:
 

Prototype of Digital onboarding + crowdfunding (Adobe XD Link)

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Digital key and digital unwrapping:

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Prototype of the digital experience:

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In this user case, the decision was made to make an immersive and simple web game that is directly connected with the chosen them of the gift. After completing the game, the user can see what the actual gift is through digital unwrapping. 

The design decisions here is based on th conducted research with rich visuals in both the digital key and the digital unwrapping as well as the game which are all connected with the gift. The process is alsi continuation of the design implemented in the onboarding and crowdfunding platform.

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Physical Card:

Visuals can be seen in pdf handout below and the actual physical prototype can be seen below it.

The card is based on the Hallmark visual style guide. The box is also customizable by the user when filling in the custom experience that is adjustable to the user. The card itself comes with props (can be seen in the physical prototype) that are also connected with the them and the factors that were researched to be most suitable for the user  - engagement and relatedness.

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Demo Day with Hallmark Cards Client with all the final deliverables