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Adobe Life. To increase retention and adoption among new hires and interns, I led user experience improvements for the Adobe Life campus app.

Role


UI/UX Design, Contract

Team


Andy Ho, Director of Enteprise Architecture

Patricia Wang, Project Manager

Kelly Yan, Designer

Duration


12 Weeks

Link


Google Play

App Store

Overview


I was selected out of 300 students to work on the Adobe Life project through Gaucho Creative, UCSB's premier design consulting organization.


Working directly with Adobe PMs, designers, and their Director of Enterprise Architecture and Digital Employee Experience, I helped ideate features for Adobe Life, a campus app designed for Adobe employees. I built features around publicizing campus events, crafted a complementary marketing campaign, and was allowed behind-the-scenes access to their app.


It remains one of my most fruitful projects to date, unfortunately due to my NDA, I cannot reveal the majority of my work.

Highlights

Project highlights.

User research and ideation.

The Adobe project was the first time I experienced how user research was conducted in the workplace. We used survey tools like Qualtrics, focused on reaching large sample sizes, targeting key demographics, and utilizing data analysis techniques to drive our design insights.

Presenting to stakeholders.

At the end of my contract, I had the unique opportunity to present my final designs and recommendations to Adobe's UI/UX designers, customer customer support team, and digital workplace experience team.

Takeaways

Designing for 10,000 users, takeaways and lessons.

Photos from the team.

Working with UCSB's design consulting team on the Adobe project meant I had a group of peers and mentors to rely on during my 12-week project. Pictured from left to right: Adobe Swag, Gaucho Creative.

A learning experience.

Working with Adobe during the beginning of my design career was a uniquely rewarding experience. Here are some of my major takeaways.

Design Takeaways

There's more to research than just asking questions. Research benefits from being a quantitative and analytical process. Rely on tools like Qualtrics, target key demographics for your surveys, and keep documentation on your insights.

That being said, ask questions! Working with Adobe provided me with vast access to resources, design systems, and mentorship that I wouldn't have received at a smaller company. I scheduled coffee chats, asked for design documentation, and contributed to style guides, which helped me become a stronger designer.

Collaboration doesn't mean splitting up the work. Collaboration comes in so many different forms. For us, it came by weekly meetings where we set the direction for our designs. When we worked on one file, we made sure to spend a good hour workshopping the styling and layout that we'd be using.

Design Takeaways

There's more to research than just asking questions. Research benefits from being a quantitative and analytical process. Rely on tools like Qualtrics, target key demographics for your surveys, and keep documentation on your insights.

That being said, ask questions! Working with Adobe provided me with vast access to resources, design systems, and mentorship that I wouldn't have received at a smaller company. I scheduled coffee chats, asked for design documentation, and contributed to style guides, which helped me become a stronger designer.

Collaboration doesn't mean splitting up the work. Collaboration comes in so many different forms. For us, it came by weekly meetings where we set the direction for our designs. When we worked on one file, we made sure to spend a good hour workshopping the styling and layout that we'd be using.

Design Takeaways

There's more to research than just asking questions. Research benefits from being a quantitative and analytical process. Rely on tools like Qualtrics, target key demographics for your surveys, and keep documentation on your insights.

That being said, ask questions! Working with Adobe provided me with vast access to resources, design systems, and mentorship that I wouldn't have received at a smaller company. I scheduled coffee chats, asked for design documentation, and contributed to style guides, which helped me become a stronger designer.

Collaboration doesn't mean splitting up the work. Collaboration comes in so many different forms. For us, it came by weekly meetings where we set the direction for our designs. When we worked on one file, we made sure to spend a good hour workshopping the styling and layout that we'd be using.

Business Takeaways

Keep metrics in mind. Understand how your designs affect KPIs like user engagement, retention, and adoption. Not only do they provide your designs with a quantitative measure of success, but they can be an advocate for certain product decisions.

Keep an eye on the clock. Twelve weeks can seem like a long time, but designing for a large company can mean quick turnarounds. Creating a rough plan, and setting midway goals helped me keep the pace of my work in check.

Stay in touch. At the end of my time at Adobe, I made sure to schedule coffee chats and mentorship calls with the colleagues I worked closely with.

Business Takeaways

Keep metrics in mind. Understand how your designs affect KPIs like user engagement, retention, and adoption. Not only do they provide your designs with a quantitative measure of success, but they can be an advocate for certain product decisions.

Keep an eye on the clock. Twelve weeks can seem like a long time, but designing for a large company can mean quick turnarounds. Creating a rough plan, and setting midway goals helped me keep the pace of my work in check.

Stay in touch. At the end of my time at Adobe, I made sure to schedule coffee chats and mentorship calls with the colleagues I worked closely with.

Business Takeaways

Keep metrics in mind. Understand how your designs affect KPIs like user engagement, retention, and adoption. Not only do they provide your designs with a quantitative measure of success, but they can be an advocate for certain product decisions.

Keep an eye on the clock. Twelve weeks can seem like a long time, but designing for a large company can mean quick turnarounds. Creating a rough plan, and setting midway goals helped me keep the pace of my work in check.

Stay in touch. At the end of my time at Adobe, I made sure to schedule coffee chats and mentorship calls with the colleagues I worked closely with.

Thanks for reading.

Built from scratch with Framer and custom code.

Hasith Basnayake, 2024.