Case Study
Dreamix - Reimagine the Dreamforce Experience
Overview
2023
My Role
Design research, UX/UI design, graphic design, animation, accessibility design
Team
Team with Jiaming Mao(Interaction Designer)
2023
Intro
In the spring of 2021 Salesforce sponsored a class with ArtCenter to see how students could help them reimagine Dreamforce so it can continue to grow during COVID and beyond. I teamed with an interaction designer, and our solution is Dreamix.Our solution Dreamix provides a hybrid method for anyone to join Dreamforce. It composed by an online platform that provides live and on-demand content aimed at people who cannot attend the event in-person, and an onsite hub that bring in-person experience for the community.
For better User Experience, Please review more content on Desktop.

🖥️
How can we design an engaging,  hybrid event that can brings together the global community to Dreamforce, no matter where are they?
Our solution Dreamix provides a hybrid method for anyone to join Dreamforce. It composed by an online platform that provides live and on-demand content for people who cannot attend the event in-person, and an onsite hub that bring in-person experience for the community.
Challenge
Solution
Main page
Landing Page
Content Pages
Video Comment Interaction
Research
Every year, Dreamforce provide unparalleled “on-site experience” that brings together the entire Salesforce community, including partners, customers and fans. However, because of Covid, Trailblazers can not attend Dreamforce in person like what they use to do. Therefore, after analyze, we realized the challenge is:
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How to redesign Dreamforce so that attendees could experience all the activities in an immersive way, without having to be there.
Existing Large Social-Activity Research & Audit
We conducted research and audit on more than 10 large social activities, including Burning Man, WWD, and SWSX. These events ranged from purely on-site activities to purely online ones. It allowed us to identify patterns and connections within the data set, making it a valuable tool for understanding the impact of COVID-19 on large-scale social activity and identifying areas for improvement.
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Burning Man
1
1. Virtual event included a wide range of online interactive activities.
2. Encourage people to create their local communities.
3. Encourage people to share their ideas to the community.
4. Emphasize on co-creation.
5. Always have a strong central theme.
WWDC
2
1. Featured inclusive new sessions that covered a wide range of topics.
2. The keynote presentation gave audience the familiarity of what WWDC use to do.
3. Encouraged people to attend different online activities even on interviews and trend study.
4. Had interactive online workshops and labs.
SXSW
3
1. Hold hybrid activity, had attendees by thousands of people from around the world.
2. Numerous panels and discussions with industry leaders.
3. Opportunity to launch attendees own project or product and speak their opinion.
4. Inspiring networking opportunities amongst peers within their respective industries
Balenciaga
4
1. Live streaming of the show, giving access to viewers all over the world.
2. Innovative tech-based video editing throughout the show.
3. Emotional storytelling elements on how Balenciaga was involved in supporting frontline workers against Covid-19.
Dreamforce Attendee Analysis

We then wanted to analyze the characteristics of attendees who attend the campaign so that we can have the opportunity to learn, build and design more specifically for them. For the past five years, millions of people attended Dreamforce, they

1. Having a consistent central theme that not only showcased Salesforce's brand values but also provided a safe space for attendees to feel comfortable and share their experiences.

2. Providing multiple channels for attendees to acquire information they need most.

3. Building connections through hosting global activities.

Eager to learn
Attendees are eager and excited to learn about real-world insights that they can put to work and the most innovative technologies and brands.
Create connections
Attendees wants to create new connections and business opportunities by physically connecting with industry pioneers, change makers.
Willing to share
Attendees are encouraged to share their stories and celebrate their successes in the tech industry.
High-Level Goals
In addition to all Dreamforce-related research, we also looked at other event approaches to hosting social gatherings under covid, such as Burning Man, Disney, WWDC, Microsoft Build, and more. By combining the insights from stakeholder desk research and activity case studies, we managed to distill the focus and primary goals behind our design theme into the following points:

Easy-to-attend
1
Regardless of the participants' profession and geographical location, they can experience Dreamforce events without barriers. Through the Internet, attendees can break the limitations of distance and time to attend events anytime, anywhere.
Create meaningful connections
2
Through various events organized by Dreamforce and the networking platform it provides, attendees are brought together to develop real connections with people and companies with common interests.
Strong visual motifs
3
Utilizing Salesforce’s lightning design system and design guidelines to emphasize brand value.
Flexibility in personalized  scheduling
4
Attendees can control their own pace to enjoy the activity and create personalized memories.
User Experience Flow
On-boarding Flow
Users who have not saved their credentials will be able to Login from the landing page, new users could create a Dreamix account inside the Login page. The create account process will ask users to enter their basic account information (name, email, username, password), as well as present them with an opportunity to curate their most interested topics.
Browsing &Review Content & Interaction
After login, users can explore any content on Dreamix. Homepage content is recommended based on the topics of interest selected by the user during registration. Basically, videos and report articles on Dreamix are delivered in two ways: as series and as notes. It allows the user to absorb the latest information prepared by Dreamforce in the same way as watching a movie or TV show on Netflix, just according to their interests and schedule.
Interaction Details
As a solution to the pain point of "users wanting to make real connections", we emphasized the importance of allowing users to interact with real users from all over the world when viewing videos or articles: when they are watching video content, they can leave a danmu at any time during the playback of the video, they can also comment on any danmu that they agree with. For articles, users are able to highlight specific sentences to comment on, or post their reflections for the entire paragraph.
Branding & Visual Guideline
Based on several discussion with Salesforce stakeholder, we realized that salesforce heavily value their branding and tone. Dreamforce is not only an activity, but also a way for salesforce to spread their branding value. A successful Dreamix event will adopt “Lighting Design System” for no doubt.
Color Palette
Typography
Final Design
Log In& Sign Up
Log In& Sign Up
Users who have not saved their credentials will be able to Login from the landing page, new users could create a Dreamix account inside the Login page.
Landing Page
After login, users can explore any content on Dreamix.
Content Page
Homepage content is recommended based on the topics of interest selected by the user during registration.
Content Card
Basically, videos and report articles on Dreamix are delivered in two ways: As series and as notes. It allows the user to absorb the latest information prepared by Dreamforce in the same way as watching a movie or TV show on Netflix, just according to their interests and schedule.
Video Collection Page
Video Comment Interaction - 1
As a solution to the pain point of "users wanting to make real connections", we emphasized the importance of allowing users to interact with real users from all over the world when viewing videos or articles: when they are watching video content, they can leave a "danmu" at any time during the playback of the video, they can also comment on any "danmu" that they agree with.
Video Comment Interaction -2
Video Comment Interaction -3
Passage Collection Page
For articles, users are able to highlight specific sentences to comment on, or post their reflections for the entire paragraph.
For better User Experience, Please review more content on Desktop.

🖥️
User Experience Flow
We decided to design a hybrid event that using online activity as main event platform and onsite-activity as support. We explored many different ways an attendee would be able to enjoy the online experience seamlessly: on boarding& login, browsing&view content&interaction
On boarding & Log In
Users who have not saved their credentials will be able to Login from the landing page, new users could create a Dreamix account inside the Login page. The create account process will ask users to enter their basic account information (name, email, username, password), as well as present them with an opportunity to curate their most interested topics.
Browsing & Review Content & Interaction
After login, users can explore any content on Dreamix. Homepage content is recommended based on the topics of interest selected by the user during registration. Basically, videos and report articles on Dreamix are delivered in two ways: as series and as notes. It allows the user to absorb the latest information prepared by Dreamforce in the same way as watching a movie or TV show on Netflix, just according to their interests and schedule.
Interaction Details
As a solution to the pain point of "users wanting to make real connections", we emphasized the importance of allowing users to interact with real users from all over the world when viewing videos or articles: when they are watching video content, they can leave "Danmu" at any time during the playback of the video, they can also comment on any "Danmu" that they agree with. For articles, users are able to highlight specific sentences to comment on, or post their reflections for the entire paragraph.
User Experience Flow
We decided to design a hybrid event that using online activity as main event platform and onsite-activity as support. We explored many different ways an attendee would be able to enjoy the online experience seamlessly: on boarding& login, browsing&view content&interaction
On boarding & Log In
Users who have not saved their credentials will be able to Login from the landing page, new users could create a Dreamix account inside the Login page. The create account process will ask users to enter their basic account information (name, email, username, password), as well as present them with an opportunity to curate their most interested topics.
Browsing & Review Content & Interaction
After login, users can explore any content on Dreamix. Homepage content is recommended based on the topics of interest selected by the user during registration. Basically, videos and report articles on Dreamix are delivered in two ways: as series and as notes. It allows the user to absorb the latest information prepared by Dreamforce in the same way as watching a movie or TV show on Netflix, just according to their interests and schedule.
Interaction Details
As a solution to the pain point of "users wanting to make real connections", we emphasized the importance of allowing users to interact with real users from all over the world when viewing videos or articles: when they are watching video content, they can leave "Danmu" at any time during the playback of the video, they can also comment on any "Danmu" that they agree with. For articles, users are able to highlight specific sentences to comment on, or post their reflections for the entire paragraph.
Outcome and Learnings
After our presentation, stakeholders were amazed at our ability to provide such insight into Dreamforce in a short period of time. This project was born out of the global impact of COVID-19, where people's behaviors and perceptions were forced to change in the midst of such a quiet disaster. In these unprecedented times, globalization has made it more difficult to achieve its true impact.

Our ultimate goal is to use demographics as a tool, participatory design as a methodology, and large-scale events as a vehicle to find ways to design solutions to problems in unfamiliar encounters.
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