OVERVIEW
How our team turned ocean conservation data into a physical, emotional experience using AR, motion sensors, and AI-generated personalization.
CLIENT/COMPANY
Dell Technologies
ROLE
UI/UX Designer
(Prototyping, Interactions)
TIMELINE
Oct 2023 - Dec 2023
TOOLS
Figma, TouchDesigner, 8thwall, Kinetic Sensor
PROBLEM
We Were Not Designing a Screen. We Were Designing a Feeling.
THE CHALLENGE
This was not a typical UX project. There was no app to redesign, no dashboard to simplify. Dell wanted to build a live activation at SXSW that would get people to care about ocean conservation, and they wanted it to feel like something you would actually remember, not just another branded booth you walk past.
why it mattered
The challenge was specific: create a one-time, in-person experience that educates people about coral ecosystems, emotionally connects them to the cause, and makes Dell's commitment to conservation feel real. We had limited prototype time, the stakes were public, and the experience had to work flawlessly with strangers walking in off the street.
core ux problem
I had never designed anything like this before. No screen to fall back on. No familiar UI patterns. Just a room, some technology, and the question: how do you make someone feel connected to a reef they have never seen?
AUDIENCE
Designing for Curious People Who Showed Up to Be Surprised
WHO THEY ARE
SXSW attendees are a specific kind of audience. They are tech-savvy, they have seen a hundred brand activations, and they are not easily impressed. But they are also genuinely curious. They come to discover things, not just consume them. Both personas had one thing in common: they would only give us a few minutes. Whatever we built had to hook them fast and leave them with something that felt personal.
Personas
SARAH, 35, FOUNDER
Pain Points: Finds most tech booths too abstract or too salesy. Wants to see how brands use technology for storytelling, not just marketing. Inspired by conservation but skeptical of corporate greenwashing.
Goals at SXSW: Find emerging experience formats like AR and projection. Learn from activations that blend beauty with purpose. Discover how big brands use tech for real impact.
Pain Points: Frustrated when brand stories feel one-size-fits-all. Looking for activation ideas he can bring back to his own team. Wants to understand the strategy behind the spectacle, not just the spectacle itself.
Goals at SXSW: Identify emerging experience formats like AR, projection, and motion. Learn how immersive experiences can drive real engagement. Understand how to apply these ideas to his own brand.
RESEARCH
We Started With Data and Ended With Empathy
APPROACH
Dell gave us a solid starting point with attendee demographics, SXSW trend reports, and environmental sentiment data. But data alone does not tell you how to make someone feel something. So we combined those insights with experiential research, watching how people actually interact with AR installations, projection-based exhibits, and interactive technology in public spaces.
METHODS
Our answer came through a blend of:
Client-provided analytics (age ranges, roles, business goals)
Stakeholder interviews
Competitive analysis of SXSW installations
Story-first ideation sessions with the creative team
key audience stats
Top Roles at SXSW
Founders
Managers
Directors
Top Business Goals
72%
Want to discover new opportunities
58%
Want to develop their careers
A few things became clear fast. SXSW audiences respond to technology that serves a purpose, not just technology for its own sake. Emotional, visceral experiences drive deeper engagement than informational ones. Interactivity creates ownership. Passive viewing does not stick. When people can physically move and shape what they see, they feel like participants, not spectators.
key insights
Insights
Design Decision
"People want to do, not just see"
We made every user generate and plant a coral through motion + AR
"Most activations feel generic"
We introduced personalization through an AI-generated coral quiz
"Sustainability sometimes feels preachy"
We led with beauty, emotion, and agency not facts and stats
"I want something to take with me"
Users left with a coral adoption certificate + physical tracker
reframing the problem
Early in the process, we realized we were not just designing an experience about coral. We were designing a moment of connection. That reframing changed everything. Instead of leading with data and facts about reef destruction, we led with beauty, emotion, and agency. The science was still there, but it lived underneath the experience, not on top of it.
IDEATION
We Had Too Many Ideas. The Hard Part Was Killing Them.
ideation goal
Once we understood that our audience needed emotional connection, interactivity, and a sense of agency, the brainstorming exploded. We explored dozens of concepts. Physical props, full AR environments, interactive walls, gamified challenges, projection tunnels. Everyone on the team had a vision, and most of them were genuinely good. But that was the problem. We had too much. So we kept coming back to one filter: does this moment help the user feel connected to the reef? If it did not, it got cut.
IDEAS EXPLORED
Idea
Notes
Status
AI-Generated Personal Corals
Created a sense of ownership and identity
Kept
Real-Time AR Reef Projection
Made coral placement feel participatory and magical
Kept
LED Tunnel Onboarding
Gave emotional weight to the transition into the space
Kept
Physical Coral Pet Tracker
Brought the story into the real world
Kept
Multi-story Reef Narrative System
Created cognitive overload during testing
Cut
Real-Time Ocean Data Integration
Interesting, but too abstract for the festival setting
Cut
Live TouchDesigner Feedback Wall
Simplified to essential visual elements
Scaled
physical space layout
Building experience arc
We structured CoralSphere around a 3-part journey: Onboarding: An LED tunnel sets the emotional tone the second you walk in. Then you take a short quiz that builds a personal coral identity based on your values. Main Experience: You enter the reef through projection mapping. You interact with AI-generated corals and AR elements. Then you plant your personalized coral into a shared digital ecosystem. Offboarding: You get an adoption certificate and a physical tracker. You learn how Dell's technology powers the conservation effort. And you are invited to stay connected to the mission beyond SXSW.
MAIN USER FLOW
TESTING
Our Best Feedback Came From Almost Going Too Far
APPROACH
Because this was a one-time live event, we could not do traditional usability testing with real users over multiple rounds. Our testing had to be fast, experiential, and focused on whether the emotional arc actually landed. We prototyped interactive flows in Figma and TouchDesigner, simulated motion sensor behavior using custom inputs, and ran mid-fidelity walkthroughs with internal stakeholders and the Dell team.
the turning points
Then came a pivotal moment. In one of our key client presentations, the feedback was almost too positive. They loved everything: the AI quiz, the AR projections, the physical trackers, the educational displays, the LED transitions. All of it. But we realized that was actually the problem. We were doing too much. The experience was impressive, but it was not clear. It was cluttered. So we had to step back and ask the hard questions: what is actually necessary to tell this story? What is emotionally powerful versus just technically cool? What can we realistically build in our timeline? The most important feedback we got was: "The AR is exciting, but we need it to feel seamless." That one sentence changed our approach. We reduced AR interactions to a single key moment, planting your coral, instead of layering AR throughout the entire experience. That subtraction made everything stronger.
Feedback
Iteration
“This might be too much to digest in 5–7 minutes.”
Scaled back multi-part narrative to focus on one coral journey
“Can we simplify the ending?”
Refined offboarding to focus on the email + tracker takeaway
“The AR is exciting, but we need it to feel seamless”
Reduced AR interactions to one key moment (planting coral)
“Let’s not distract from Dell’s story”
Created a secondary info tunnel for Dell branding + tech spotlight
testing takeaways
Client feedback helped us prioritize emotional resonance over novelty.
Multi-sensory experiences require ruthless focus, especially under time pressure.
Even immersive storytelling needs UX fundamentals: hierarchy, clarity, and pacing.
SOLUTION
One Room. Three Phases. One Coral That Is Yours.
THE SOLUTION
We designed CoralSphere as a fully immersive, multi-sensory journey. Every detail from motion-triggered projections to a personalized coral adoption was crafted to make users feel like they weren’t just learning about the reef… they were part of saving it.
The experience unfolded across three carefully choreographed phases:
onboarding
Guests entered through a glowing LED tunnel that set an emotional tone, leading them to a quiz powered by AI. Their answers generated a unique coral, their personal reef companion.
experience
Inside the main space, guests planted their coral into a 360° projected reef using motion sensors, watched it react in real-time, and explored how Dell’s AI helps protect real ecosystems.
offboarding
The journey ended with a coral adoption certificate and a bracelet with an embedded NFC chip, allowing users to track their coral’s progress via a mobile app, turning a one-time moment into lasting engagement.
core features
Users step into a 360-degree projected reef environment. Movement triggers responses. The space feels alive and reactive, setting up the idea that this reef responds to you.
Using AR and TouchDesigner, users could physically interact with elements projected around them. Movement triggered responses, making the environment feel alive and participatory.
Users answered questions about their values and personality. An AI used those answers to generate a one-of-a-kind coral image that reflected who they are. Nobody got the same coral. That was intentional, it turned an educational experience into a personal one.
Users placed their personalized coral into the shared digital reef. This was the moment everything clicked. You were not just watching conservation content. You were contributing to a living digital ecosystem. That sense of ownership was the entire emotional payoff.
Users received a personalized coral adoption certificate and a custom bracelet with an NFC tracker, giving them something physical to take home and stay connected to the mission.
RESULTS
The Story Worked Because It Made People Feel Something
overview
CoralSphere was not just well-received. It sparked real enthusiasm at Dell. The response from their creative leadership was clear: the experience worked because it made people feel something first, then taught them something second.
client reactions
Jason Pierce
Innovations Manager
“I could just picture the participants so immersed in this experience… good job.”
“You did a great job bringing all these multi-sensory elements together.”
Michelle Daniels
Global Brand Director
“It’s not just something pretty to look at, it’s a teaching moment.”
“This feels both beautiful and meaningful. I really like the thinking here.”
Joel Davis
Executive Creative Director
“I love the backend partnership angle and how we could expand this further.”
“You’re telling an actual story, not just a concept. That’s rare.”
Sarah Puckett
Events Coordinator at Dell
“Showing how Dell enables impact with our oceans through tech? Brilliant.”
“Letting users receive something for participating is really smart.”
what we achieved
Turned Dell's reef conservation partnership into a tangible, emotional experience that attendees actually engaged with.
Converted abstract environmental data into a personal interaction where each user left with a coral that was uniquely theirs.
Built a complete digital-to-physical journey: AI quiz to AR coral to NFC bracelet. Received strong buy-in from Dell's creative leadership, from innovation managers to brand directors.
Set the groundwork for scaling the activation concept to future events.
what it validated
Immersive storytelling can make brand experiences feel genuine, not just promotional.
Personalization drives emotional engagement more than information alone. Subtraction is a design tool.
Cutting features made the remaining ones stronger. Physical takeaways extend the experience beyond the moment.
REFLECTION
This Project Made Me a Different Kind of Designer
big picture
Before CoralSphere, I thought of UX as screens and flows. This project broke that open. I had to think like an experience architect, considering physical space, timing, emotional arcs, and technical constraints all at once.
what i learned
1. Learning new tools under pressure is uncomfortable but worth it. Prototyping motion sensor interactions in TouchDesigner was the steepest learning curve I have faced. I had never used the tool before and had to learn it on a deadline. It taught me to ask better questions, test smarter, and be scrappy without cutting corners.
2. Collaboration across disciplines forces better communication. I worked with multimedia artists, writers, and developers who all thought about design differently. That meant I could not just hand off a Figma file and hope for the best. I had to advocate for the user in every conversation, from LED tunnel timing to post-visit interactions.
3. The best experiences come from cutting, not adding. We got carried away early on, stacking wow moments on top of each other. It took honest feedback and painful iteration to realize that clarity is what makes an experience emotional, not more features.
what i'd do differently
I would redesign the offboarding flow to feel less rushed.
Add a post-experience digital touchpoint so users stay connected after SXSW.
Push for more lightweight user testing earlier in the process, even informal hallway tests with teammates.
Build in more time for cross-team alignment on scope before the final sprint.
closing thought
CoralSphere reminded me that UX is not limited to screens. It lives in feelings, timing, and the transitions between moments. And honestly, nothing in my career so far has matched watching someone light up when they saw their coral appear for the first time.
