Overview
TEC has been pioneering innovative educational models since 1943. Its current ambition is to bring its academic efforts to a new level by transforming its University District into an Innovation District, a place in which ideas are developed until they become technology-based solutions to the most pressing challenges for humanity.
The cornerstone of this innovation epicenter is ‘Expedition’, the place in charge of sparking the connection and multidisciplinary collaboration needed to make this ambition a reality.
Company
frog
Business Type
Education, R+D
Role
Visual Design, Illustration, Product Definition, Concept art
Tip of the iceberg
To have a clear definition of the experiences that will characterize ‘The Expedition Vivencia’, together with TEC, frog created an experience strategy that was materialized into differentiated experience concepts.
For an institution that has been positioned as private and exclusive, one of the important realizations was the need to break down its walls and welcome the diversity of external actors that are needed to allow the District to flourish.
Challenge
Expedition will be one of the first Innovation Centers led by a university in Mexico. It will benefit from being located in Monterrey, a city characterized by its industrious reputation. TEC already defined priority research areas that have a strong natural connection to TEC’s strengths and mission.
To develop a knowledge-based economy the participation of a diversity of actors is key, attracting talent to increase the District’s capacity for innovation is one of the current challenges that Expedition face.
Key stakeholder co-creation
Through intensive participatory workshops in which we interact with up to 30 stakeholders from TEC, we co-designed an Experience Strategy that goes from intangible to tangible (from purpose definition to conceptualisation).
To establish a north star for experience design, we defined opportunity areas that help us break down a complex system into singular challenges to focus our thinking.
The key elements of such opportunities were:
Purpose: Defining a clear mission and reason to be.
People: Understanding audiences for whom we design.
Participation: Aligning on behaviours, emotions, and ways to engage.
Afterward, we identified what made the Tec Expedition Experience different from any other center.
Concept Stimuli
Based on the differentiators, we defined a more specific purpose that helped us clarify the opportunity areas and select the experience lines that will help Tec craft a meaningful and holistic Expedition Experience.
Together with Tec, we came up with concepts for each of the opportunity spaces defined that help us identify core needs and the main themes under which new ideas and concepts could fall. We called them “strategic concept axis”.
Expedition's North Star
We then selected the concepts and axis that could fulfill gaps the Tec team identified in the Expedition experience ecosystem and defined hypotheses to further validate the user’s interest and Tec’s ability to deliver each concept.
Finally, our team at frog defined a roadmap that provides guidelines to scale the concepts and keep developing a differentiated experience.
Concept share out
The strategy was materialized into experience concepts and the hypothesis to further validate them. frog also provided TEC with the foundation under which new ideas and concepts could fall. Finally we defined a roadmap that provides guidelines to scale the concepts and keep developing a differentiated experience.
The outcomes of this program were only the tip of the iceberg. As concepts gain clarity, other concepts might surface and connect to work already done. Thanks to the set of experience lines Tec now has, they will be able to assess more easily whether they fit within the Expedition experience and how they may be able to implement them.
