The Human
Insight Summit
UserTesting's flagship annual conference — known as THiS. I designed the visual identity, environment, and motion for the inaugural 2019 event in NYC, then redesigned it as a virtual world when COVID forced 2020 online.
Make a conference feel as human as the company's name.
UserTesting was building its category around human insight. The summit needed to look and feel like that promise made physical — a place where 800 researchers, designers, and product leaders could gather and recognize each other on sight.
The system had to scale from a 12-foot stage backdrop down to a name badge — and survive translation, a year later, into a medium nobody had designed for: a fully online conference.
October 15. Pier 36 on the East River. The first time the THiS identity met an audience. Color, type, and a single graphic language that ran from the welcome wall all the way to the laminated badge in everyone's pocket.
Motion identity · loop · 2019
Event photography · Ayano Hisa
Down to the badge
The same system that scaled across the welcome wall and stage came down to the lanyard. Attendees wore the brand for two days; the badge had to read at speed, hold a name + role + a moment of identity, and still feel like part of the room.
COVID closed every venue. Rather than translate THiS into a grid of video tiles, we built HiWorld — an illustrated virtual environment with the same warmth as the room in NYC. Attendees moved through it like a place, not a webinar.
Same identity, two completely different rooms. The 2019 brand held up when 2020 needed it to do something it was never designed for — and that's the test I now hold every identity system to.