IBM Design win 6 medals at the 2021 Indigo Design Awards
Two of our design teams made a big showing at the Indigo Design Awards this year.
IBM Automation Decision Services won Gold in Interactive Design and Digital Tools & Utilities, Silver in UX, Interface & Navigation, and Bronze in Apps categories respectively. Red Hat Marketplace won Gold in UX, Interface & Navigation and Silver in Animation & Illustration for Websites categories.
The Indigo Design Awards is an annual worldwide design competition that recognizes stand-out digital design projects. Named after the rare and beautiful indigo orchid flower, this international competition seeks out uncommon artistry with a “fresh new take” on elements like composition, layout, interaction, experience etc. They accepted hundreds of entries this year, resulting in an intense and extensive judging process across a 40+ member jury panel.
Approachable Hybrid Cloud Marketplace
Red Hat Marketplace offers a simpler way to buy and manage enterprise software for any cloud running on Red Hat OpenShift®. It empowers users to easily discover, try, buy, and manage a wide range of certified software in public clouds and on-premises.
Launched in September 2020, The Red Hat Marketplace design team was at the center of this product’s strategy and experience from day one. As a result, they’re leading the charge in the consumerization of IT .
They relied heavily on IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking framework to collectively identify users, their pain points, and potential improved scenarios. From this work, they defined core experiences for the marketplace that truly differentiated them from anything else out there — all while staying dead simple, consumer-focused, and driven by user experience.
The new brand and creative direction for Red Hat Marketplace comes to life with an approachable, human-focused illustration style that is light and airy, tying together a narrative thread around containerized cloud deployment.
Expanding on Red Hat’s core color palette of red, black, and white — shades of light blue are introduced to soften and complement the dynamic. A visual play of puffy white cloud parachutes deploying bright red containers from an expansive blue sky strikes a balance of playfulness and ease in a complex technology space.
Revamping key experiences
While Red Hat Marketplace allowed our design to defined an experience from scratch, with IBM Automation Decision Services (available as part of IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation) designers succeeded in trailblazing innovative updates to one of our mature products.
In their intensive user research, this design team found that business users struggled to begin first steps, organize projects, understand information hierarchy, create diagrams, and edit rule logic. They used these insights to prioritize their work
The before and after shots of IBM Automation Decision Services (as shown above), gives a closer look at the process and outcome of transforming existing experiences.
With less need for technical knowledge, and with built in intensive onboarding, these updates help bring our business users to the table. This democratization of technology across the enterprise requires great user experience, and the IBM Automation Decision Services team undoubtably delivers that.
Winning teams
I’m incredibly proud of these teams for their well-deserved wins. They prove that whether you’re breaking into a new market or expanding a user base, Thomas Watson’s adage still rings true: Good design is good business.
Red Hat Marketplace
Design led by: Neil Everette, Sarah Walter, Corey Keller, Eleanor Bartosh, Scott McCall, Shannon DeCock, Justin Gier, Aaron Sickler, and Bethany Doan.
IBM Automation Decision Services
Design team: Fabienne Schoeman, Myriam Battelli, Aurélie Baton, Dave Clark
Arin Bhowmick (@arinbhowmick) is Vice President and Chief Design Officer, IBM Hybrid Cloud, Data and AI platform , based in San Francisco, California. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
