Dynamic, JCDecaux

A platform providing easy-to-use tools to deliver contextual advertising.

A desktop, tablet and mobile montage depicting the JCDecaux Dynamic responsive platform.

Worked for

Dynamic, JCDecaux

Project length

3 weeks

End date

March 2016

A small startup which had recently been acquired by JCDecaux, Dynamic focus on delivering a bespoke DOOH platform where clients can easily manage their digital campaigns while providing the ability to easily add 'contextually aware' parameters to their advertisements. I was hired shortly after the acquisition to review, restructure, and redesign their 'SmartContent' beta platform in preparation for launch with key JCDecaux clients.

As our timeframe was crazy short I had to make sure I worked quickly and effectively while collaborating closely with the founders to get agreement and sign-off.

Refining user flows

I began using the beta platform myself in order to review current user flows (as initial research had been lost). Working with Alex (a founding director) we mapped out patterns of key user interactions which helped influence design decisions when we came to paper prototyping.

An example user flow depicting how a user could upload assets. An example of how we marked up areas of the platform which could be improved and worked on.
We created user flows to improve the experience across various high-impact interactions. These aided us in marking up areas of the platform which could be improved upon.

I also reviewed the current site map, highlighting potential stress points which again helped decisions when deciding which bits of the platform we could improve or group together.

A sitemap example showing the beta build of the product. An updated sitemap depicting areas where sections could be merged and streamlined.
The original sitemap and one updated with merged features.

Sketches

Now that I had a much clearer idea of where we should be heading with this redesign, and with a backlog of stories to help guide the design, I worked on initial sketches which helped define top level sections for the platform, and also key interactions we thought may work.

A photo showing sketches of the improvements we intended to build.
After agreement from stakeholders on the experience improvements we would tackle I sketched out key flows and potential templates.

Interactive prototyping

One key area of interaction which I was very keen on exploring was this idea of layering functionality rather than loading new pages. In order to visualise this and get more of a buy in from the founders, I worked up an interactive prototype showing how this proposal would work and how it could be a powerful pattern to be used throughout the platform.

Defining notifications

While exploring the interactive prototype, the founders and I discovered that there was a clear feedback element missing from the current beta and one which we should include for launch.

We basically wanted to make sure that as the user was making decisions with their campaign, the platform was conversing back to them to validate those decisions.

Initially proposed as alerts appearing after certain interactions were made, it evolved in to a message centre on the platform which would also ping emails to the user.

A dummy example of a campaign landing experience.
An example prototype of a campaign landing screen. To help distinguish each campaign a key image asset would be pulled in to the background. Users were also presented a to-do list when certain objectives needed to be completed or fixed before a campaign could be pushed live.

UI components

I initially began by mocking up key areas of the platform and building a component library from there. The UI needed to be relatively simple – almost white-label – as there were plans for clients to be able to skin their own accounts in a future release.

Once I had a library of symbols in place in Sketch it became super easy to create high fidelity mock ups of key user journeys, which would then be handed over to the development team along with a style guide and assets.

Kev came in, got hold of the problem immediately, and delivered us what we needed and more. Loved his work. Will definitely hire him again. – Alex Matthews, Managing Director

An example screenshot depicting wells for a user to upload assets. An example screenshot depicting how a user could preview their campaign before committing. A montage of the redesigned platform on tablet devices. A montage of the redesigned platform on mobile devices.
Users could easily upload their assets via drag and drop or selecting the wells. They could also preview their campaign before pushing it live. Also shown are tablet and mobile viewports.