Salesforce+
Salesforce+ is a first-of-its-kind live and on-demand content platform with a focus on high-quality original series, live events, and experiences for business audiences. We worked side-by-side with our partners at Salesforce, fielding a cross-discipline team to envision, design, and launch the platform in time for Dreamforce—the world’s largest software conference.
Codifying a bold vision
In 2020, amidst the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, Salesforce began creating popular live and on-demand content related to evolving business challenges, the future of work, and wellbeing. Leading up to its Dreamforce conference in 2021, Salesforce saw an opportunity to make a splash by building upon its on-demand content catalog to include original series, livestreamed event keynotes, sessions and performances. Together we set out to envision one centralized content platform to inspire the leaders of tomorrow with trusted, premium content and connected, best-in-class experiences.
Through collaborative workshops and early rapid prototyping, we helped define the vision and a full roadmap for Salesforce+, setting our sights on an MVP that would launch with the conference, just four and a half months later.
Laying a strong foundation
With a holistic understanding of what we were building, we began concepting requirements and UX for each feature, considering use cases, business requirements and constraints. These user flows, content maps, wireframes, and prototypes laid the foundation to drive our design and engineering efforts forward. To ensure the best experience, we conducted multiple rounds of user interviews and market research. The insights from these sessions helped us build a product rooted in validated features for a wide range of Salesforce users.
Research and testing sprints continued post-launch to generate user insights as the platform and content evolved. We folded these findings into the product roadmap, ensuring that our approach remained innovative, intentional, and user-centered.
Tools for consistency and scale
We developed an extensible design system in Figma to serve as a communication, implementation, and governance tool for the many business functions and project teams with a stake in Salesforce+. It provides a single source of truth to guide ongoing content creation and product management.
The robust design library captures grids and breakpoints logic, component classification and anatomy, rules around typography and color, interaction and motion patterns, art direction, content nomenclature, and more—everything a designer or content manager needs to confidently create for the platform.
The value of prototyping
Prototyping is an essential part of Instrument’s design process. For Salesforce+, prototypes helped us define everything from our core experience principles and visual design aesthetic to important details like page transitions and micro-animations.
These prototypes—of varying fidelities, viewport sizes and delivery types—also made it possible to align a big and busy group of stakeholders on the best path toward innovative features and novel interactions.
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Front-end engineering with care
Once features were locked and validated, we shifted into nimble engineering sprints. Our development team integrated with the Salesforce engineering team to create flawless front-end code in an efficient, highly collaborative process.
Our craft-focused, front-end approach drove the execution of responsive, buttery UI componentry delivered via quality code that was visually cohesive, accessible, and performant.
To ensure quality and efficiency throughout the work, we collaborated constantly with Salesforce to refine our approach to prioritization, shared systems, change management, and delivery processes.
The partnership continues
Our collaboration on the Salesforce+ platform continues through iterative releases aimed at realizing the next evolution of the platform. We are honored to play an ongoing part in deepening the connection between Salesforce and its current and future customers.
Experience Salesforce+ for yourself here.
Our Roles
Production
- Project and Release Plans
- Feature Prioritization
- Engineering Management
- Multidisciplinary Workstreams
- Streamlined Approval Process
- Change Management
Strategy
- Information Architecture
- User Testing + Insights
- User Flows / Wireframes
- UX Strategy
Design
- UI / UX Design
- Design System
- Motion Design
- Accessibility
- Desktop / Mobile
- Design Documentation
Engineering
- Technical Leadership
- Technical Documentation
- Solution Architecture
- Front-end Development
- Quality Assurance
- Visual Quality Assurance
- Accessibility