Life Interrupted

A theatrical Experience bringing to life the untold story of sickle cell patients

Concepting, designing, and prototyping to solve
problems and create exceptional experiences

Summary

In Spring 2021, I worked during the concept development stage of Life Interrupted, a theatrical experience made for health care providers bringing to life the untold story of sickle cell patients often overlooked in the healthcare system and the real-world consequences. It was awarded a Clio Bronze in 2022.

Details

Client: 

Novartis

Agency: 

Havas Mango

Category: 

Concept Development / Experiential Design

Timeline: 

2 months

Skills: 

Concepting / Experiential Design

Life Interrupted

In recognition of September’s Sickle Cell Awareness Month in 2021, Novartis and Havas launched a theatrical experience where five healthcare professionals were given a front-row seat to witness the moments in a person living with sickle cell disease's life. Prior to this experience, sickle cell disease (SCD) patient's stories were often unseen, misunderstood, and ignored.

The team involved myself as the Creative/Technologist and Laura Santana (UX Strategist at the time) on the Havas Mango team, along with the wider Havas Health agency network. During this project, I specifically brought my expertise in immersive environment design and storytelling to help a team that is used to working in traditional campaigns to consider the full picture in bringing experiential concepts to life.

To tell the story of Phillip, we isolated 4 life-defining moments that sickle cell disease directly altered in someway:

  • School performance suffering due to VOC crisis (a flare up in symptoms) that are often severe and debilitating for days to weeks.
  • Travelling internationally for a work trip and triggering a VOC crisis that required a hospital stay in a foreign country unpon landing
  • Family coming to visit for Thanksgiving and wanting to power through the VOC crisis instead of getting medical help
  • The VOC crisis was so severe, he ended up going to the ER and was discharged prematurely because he "looked fine." Fearing that he was in his last moments, he wrote a letter to his son, who was young at the time, to say goodbye in case he didn't make it.

For a dramatic ending, we brought out Phillip to the healthcare providers to reveal that those all based on true stories from his life. From there, each health care provider has a 1:1 conversation with Phillip on their thoughts from the experience and see how to prevent moments like these from happening to other SCD patients.

Since the budget would not accomodate for a full walkable environment build of each moment as we originally intended, we suggested a theatrical format with a rotating floor and pre-setup rooms in different directions to move the health care providers from one moment to the next without having to leave their seat.

Learn more about sickle cell disease and hear more from Phillip, our inspiration for this project: https://www.hcplive.com/view/phillip-okwo-crisis-life-interrupted-sickle-cell-disease

Why this works

Makes an intangible service easily understood

Instead of a typical bullet list of partners on a site or having to explain what digital transformation is 30 times, this visualizes the partner network in an interactive way and all in one place.

establishes credibility and innovation-focused thinking

When you're in the business of digital transformation, there's an extra amount of scrutiny to walk the walk. This demo enables them to do that (and show off a bit, too).

creates an immersive and engaging environment for guests to end on a finale

The DXC Partner Room experience is the last of a 1 hour ambassador-led tour about the company. This experience energizes guests right before they leave for a great last impression.

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MY RESPONSIBILITIES

Concepting, Experiential Design

TOOLS USED

Sketchup, Photoshop, Twinmotion

MY RESPONSIBILITIES
CONCEPTING
EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN
CONCEPTING
EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN
TOOLS USED
MIRO
SKETCHUP
ILLUSTRATOR
PHOTOSHOP
Concept

Use AR to animate instructions right off the page for improved context

AR provides two key features that help users further understand their environment. 1) It puts in augmented content wherever the user holds their phone camera and 2) Provides context in the X, Y, and Z axises instead of just two like traditional mobile applications.

Why this works

Use AR to animate instructions right off the page for improved context

IKEA Assembly is a mobile application that uses augmented reality to place animated instructions into the user's environment.  The little details and context that get lost in a picture can be clarified by the user walking around, moving closer and away from the model, and iconography representing key tools and actions needed.

The Process

behind-the-scenes: Interaction Inspiration, Environment Inspiration, Environment Iterations, UX Storyboarding, and Sound Design Planning

Concepting, designing, and prototyping to solve
problems and create exceptional experiences

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Your objective should always be to eliminate instructions entirely by making everything self-explanatory, or as close to it as possible. When instructions are absolutely necessary, cut them back to a bare minimum.

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Features

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Features

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Heading

The spectacle before us was indeed sublime.

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Button Text
Interaction Inspiration
environment Inspiration
environment Iterations
Storyboarding

Merging together the physical and digital for full immersion

In projects that combine the digital and physical components, I like to prototype it in some way to understand how it all comes together and refine from there. Below is the storyboards illustrating how the lighting effects might react to actions on screen and what part of the experience the guest is in. This later led to another animatic with the lighting effects that we showed to the client for feedback and approval.

Install and Construction

Cross-team and partner collaboration

Throughout the project, Cole (Creative director) and I led conversations with key partners, particularly CCS (a new AV Integrator partner to 900lbs) and architectural firm, BBK. Part of this included creating spatial designs to understand guest affordances of the space, how the technology and construction will intersect, and overseeing the creation of construction documents accurately reflecting the design and client goals of the space. This shows the iteration and change of concept throughout based on client feedback.

Sound Design Planning

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Legowerk UX kit

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