Aja Shamblee Design Director | Product, Brand, Growth Marketing
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Github Universe

An end-to-end event and product activation experience
Situation

For many attendees, GitHub Universe is their first real encounter with our brand, and the moment that shapes how they talk about us long after. It’s our biggest stage to show what we’re building, bring our community together, and turn curiosity into connection. Universe should be a catalyst. So we reimagined an event experience that helps you plan your day, anticipates your needs during and after the event, and feels more like a concierge than a control panel. We sought out to create a world-class experience that left people impressed, excited, and ready to come back.

My role
  • Audit all phases of the event
  • Review last years data and feedback
  • Draft product experience strategy
  • Define a cross-functional roadmap and it’s key milestones w/stakeholders
  • Provide creative direction between Brandstudio, Site Design, and two engineering teams (one vendor)
Project goals
Make it easier to discover sessions

Build a branded agenda experience on web and via the app to streamline access to sessions, increase confidence in scheduling, and drive stronger engagement pre, during, and post-event.

Deepen live event engagement

Create a central hub to discover exclusive in-person events, workshops and parties. Deliver tailored recommendations that help users navigate by need, interest, or roles.

Increase feature adoption

Create a one-stop shop where anyone can find GitHub’s Keynote Product announcements. Guide news to adopt features and make existing features more discoverable within the platform.

Buckle up This years theme, Developer Wonderland, invited us to build a joyful, expressive world where the logic of code meets the magic of creation. Our goal was to make that magic feel just as tangible online as it does in person. We layered in whimsical character animations, WebGL micro-interactions, session recommendations and hidden easter eggs, that scaled across web, our app, and a newly refactored event portal.
Omg, this is cute af We reimagined the full digital experience, from registration to post event product announcements, to guide attendees through a playful, personalized, and connected journey.
Shoutout to my team I led the web strategy, wrote the creative brief and orchestrated that direction across web designers, engineers and our agency teams to turn a vendor platform into something magical.

14%

YoY growth in event registrations

13%

YoY growth for in-person attendees

35%

YoY increase in number of sessions booked, with all activities reaching full capacity

Pat myself on the back Ask me about the audit that inspired this redesign, the collaborative art direction process or how we inspired our keynote motion designers to mimic our web animation principles for the live event.
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