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Unisys: User Experience of the Next Millennium

Design and develop a marketing communication piece for exhibition at Comdex showcasing the future of Web application interfaces and database engines.

The Challenge
On October 27th, 1999, Unisys announced the formation of its e-commerce initiative e-@ction Solutions. Supporting this announcement was the release of 'The Data Center of the Next Millennium'. Operating on Windows 2000, this configuration of hardware, software, and networking provides tangible proof of the readiness of these technologies and services to provide enterprise-scale transaction intensive systems. The Data Center results from a collaboration and partnership between the most intelligent information management companies in today's digital marketplace. They include Unisys, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems, Giganet, Imation, NetIQ, Mercury Interactive, StorageTek, qlogic, and EMC2.

Unisys turned to my team for the creation of an experience that would capture attention, engage users, and clearly articulate the computational, transactional, and business power of the Data Center. my team created an e-commerce site (view the site) , an interactive demo, and an attention grabbing multimedia presentation. The applications and presentations were showcased at Comdex 99, the largest annual IT conference in the United States. The interactive applications developed by my team and featured at the Unisys stage area provided a dynamic demonstration of the Data Center's capabilities. Supporting web sites and links also exist on the World Wide Web.

The Solution
My team worked with Unisys to develop a web site and a unified message for 'The Data Center of the Next Millennium. One of the primary components was the next-generation e-commerce site Interstellar Outfitters. Interstellar Outfitters was designed and developed to demonstrate the enhanced functionality and industry leading performance of the Data Center. Working from the high-level interaction descriptions in a pre-release draft of the future industry-standard Web Commerce benchmark, my team developed the user interaction strategy, site design, and interface portion of the e-commerce site code.

The booth featured a fully-functioning, transaction-intensive e-commerce business. How intensive was the load you ask? During the five days of Comdex, the Interstellar Outfitters data center processed $1.5 billion in orders and supported more then 300 million web hits per day. These stats were achieved while subjecting the system to stress from typical operations like site backups, dumps to a data warehouse, and server maintenance. In coordination with the e-commerce site simulation, my team developed an interactive, diagrammatic demo of the Data Center. The design team used a control panel from which the user could launch other demos, reveal context specific information, read descriptive text, and navigate an illustrative diagram of the system. The demo was designed so that information could be presented in a non-linear fashion, satisfying the curiosity of each particular audience.

Finally, my team developed an in-depth multimedia attract loop for the perimeter of the Unisys stage in order to draw conference attendees into the experience. An iterative process of storyboarding and content exploration culminated in a dynamic, audio-enhanced presentation that reflects the involvement of Unisys' various partners and illustrates the uniqueness and power of the Data Center.