JOSEPH BANH, MA Design Strategy + Research + Human-Centred Innovation + CX Program Design    
Toronto, CA   |   josephbanh@gmail.com  |  
+1.416.706.7663  |    https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephbanh/


WELCOME


This site is part portfolio, professional profile, and mood board of my life. Why? Because my work is concerned with knowing people deeply to create experiences that resonate & move. So I think it’s important to show a bit of who I am on top of what I do. 

        “But people’s attention spans!” 

To this I can only say that our true work is in building relationships and that like recognizes like. My goal is to work purposefully, with people who care, to solve problems, and have a positive impact on the world. None of the work presented here would be possible without the support of amazing people who brought needed skills, ideas, and passion to make good work, together. 

So, consider this as a “message in a bottle” - cast into the world with hope that those who find it might take the time to scroll on to see who I am, and what I’m about. And if you think we could do interesting things together, then please reach out - because I’ve been looking for you, too.


THREADS


Cultivating curiosity, sensitivity & sensibilities


I’ve done a lot of things over the years (which you’ll see if you keep scrolling). But a common thread that’s woven through my work is a holistic view of people as thinking, feeling, and embodied. We experience the world through our bodies and it’s the interplay between rational thought and felt emotions that shape our behaviours. 

And, it all started with art. Making things, whether it was etching large copper plates in a printmaking studio, or struggling for the right words to convey the thoughts in my head, is key to my process. Art school, a smattering of sociology, brushes with theory, and chance encounters, set me on the path to cultivating curiosity, sensitivity, and sensibilities for explorations about humanity, meaning-making, and understanding human behaviour.

For me, these foundations are at the core of human-centred design, strategy, and innovation. Whether it’s designing the museum visitor experience (or as a friend remarked, “OG Service Design!”), or prototyping customer experiences in my innovation lab, my unique experiences have shaped how I understand and approach my work. 


Legend

  1. The Unknowable (2006), etching, aquatint, silkscreen, digital, chine collé. An exploration of Roland Barthe’s “A Lover’s Discourse”. Inspired by readings on the Sociology of Knowledge - this series explored cultural production and social theory as praxis - artmaking as meaning-making. 
  2. Tap image to read: CMagazine Cover, links to an article on Toronto’s Nuit Blanche festival of contemporary art - a condensed version of my master’s research on creative cities and public culture.
  3. The Uncertainty of Signs (2006), etching, aquatint, silkscreen, digital, chine collé. An exploration of Roland Barthe’s “A Lover’s Discourse”.



PROFILE


Great Experiences Matter

The phrase, “Experience is a moving force” sums up my belief in the power of experiences to move people to action. Whether it’s action in service of commerce, in service of community, or in service of a greater good, great experiences matter.

I’ve worked internationally as a consultant and experience design strategist on projects ranging from the iconic Grand Egyptian Museum to retail experiences and digital products for clients in the financial services, automotive, and healthcare industries. A common theme across my portfolio is deep collaboration with client teams, stakeholders, end-users, and cross-disciplinary design teams to frame problems and develop creative solutions to business and organizational challenges. I apply innovation methods such as design thinking, service design, strategic foresight, and jobs-to-be-done theory to challenges big and small. 


The 8 Dimensions of Planning

The 8 Dimensions of Planning framework was developed based on my breadth of experiences. It’s an approach to customer experience program design that combines the craft of research, with human-centred design praxis, anchored in a cross-disciplinary lens for thinking about what it means to be human, today.

The past nine years were spent at Avida, a retail experience company building a full-service sensory experience design practice and related line of business. This included developing the corporate strategy, business and service delivery model, organizational design, and building new capabilities. 

Most satisfying was building xlab, our innovation lab dedicated to R&D and prototypes that foreground sensory perception, affect, and emotion in experience design. Building a lab from concept, through design, to execution was an incredible experience, but what matters the most are the people who gathered around the vision and helped me build it. Forever grateful. 


Legend
 
  1. Please contact me with any questions 
  2. 8 Dimensions of Planning - a framework I created for customer experience program design that balances user needs with business objectives and operational realities




















xlab


Innovating the brick-and-mortar retail experience

 

“People don’t buy products and services per se, they buy relationships, happiness, wellbeing and other psychologically oriented needs and wants. Make emotion central to your retail strategy.” - Doug Stephens, Retail Futurist


The Senses and Embodied Innovation
xlab was Avida’s dedicated innovation space located in downtown Toronto. Part research lab, part design studio, and part exhibition gallery, it was a space for experimentation and innovating the brick-and-mortar retail experience.  

Embodiment, the senses, perception, affect, emotion, storytelling, and meaning-making. These concepts anchored our research & development program at xlab. Why? Because as behavioral scientists have pointed out, “we humans are actually emotional & impulsive”. By better understanding how emotion and context shapes behaviour - our goal at was to develop a sensory experience design practice, novel user research methods, experience prototypes, and customer experience programs for our clients that impact on customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty. 

I developed the concept and functional requirements for the space and managed a team of architects, environmental graphic and digital designers, technologists, and construction contractors to custom retrofit a space where our clients could workshop and envision the future of digitally integrated brick-and-mortar retail.

The demo video presented here showcases the range of experience prototypes we built at xlab. 


Project Credits
Joseph Banh / Project lead and managing director, vision, concept, program design, functional requirements, project management, operations management

dbdbdb (Dan Briker) / Architectural design, FFE

Jacqueline Tang / Environmental Graphics

Boszko & Verity / General Contractors

Avida Team / Technology procurement and integration

Special thanks to David Reale for believing in me and the work and giving me the opportunity to bring it to life. 


Legend

  1. Interior view of xlab’s device & research library
  2. xlab exhibitioin gallery - a space for user testing and display of prototypes and experiments
  3. xlab office space
  4. The grim reality of xlab before it was transformed
  5. Dimensional xlab logo
  6. Exterior view of neon sign with text: Experience is a moving force - John Dewey’s words and xlab’s unofficial mantra











WONDER


Sensory storytelling for emotional impact



Project Description

Portal to the Arctic is an immersive sensory storytelling prototype created for Polar Bears International (PBI). The goal was to create a moment of wonder in the hearts and minds of viewers. We hypothesized that increased feelings of awe and wonder make us more open to connecting with others and the world, which is important to advancing PBI’s mission. The experience design explores how to drive emotional engagement by activating the user’s body and senses via immersive audio, creative editing that takes advantage of the large interactive videowall, and concise interactions designed to draw users into the experience. 

In our practice, we distinguish between “affective content” and “cognitive content”. Because our goal was to activate the user’s body and senses we dialled up on the sonic experience through the use of contemporary Inuit throat singing by the extraordinary artists, PIQSIQ. 

The prototype was also created to showcase for a prospective client how a luxury clothing company could extend its brand storytelling into the physical store for deeper emotional engagement and impact. 


Project Credits

Joseph Banh / Concept, strategy, copywriting, audio sourcing, client lead

Anthony Furia / Concept, creative direction, storyboarding, design, copywriting, UI/UX, front-end web development, video post-production

Frank Bar / 3D & motion design

Mark Boucher / Video post-production

Isaque Hossain / Front-end web development

James Findlay / Sound design

Special thanks to our partners who helped make this happen: Natalie MacNamara and Polar Bears International.

 


FEAST


Food Feelings



“Meaningfulness represents what matters to individuals. It motivates them, can be a goal in participating in an activity, and provides purpose to traditions.” - Lucy M. Long, Founder, The Center for Food and Culture

Our connection to food is deep and continually evolving. In an always-on, socially connected, globalized world, where food trends come and go, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that food, and our relationship to it, is an important aspect of human identity formation, socialization, and meaning-making.

This project started with a duo brief - to create a high-fidelity prototype to pitch to a national food retailer and simultaneously develop an exploratory research method and tool that combines affect, emotion, and storytelling. The final product, The Omnivore’s Feast is both a standalone interactive food experience and an interactive digital cultural probe created for user research. A seemingly infinite feast of dishes is presented to users who are encouraged to explore the dishes that catch their attention. It uses the visual language of “food porn” and social media food trends as an entry point to access deeper user associations and relationships with food through appeals to the senses and memory.

In developing the product, we applied a Folklore and Foodways framework to the content strategy and design of the interactive. We also incorporated the Foodways approach into the data analysis methodology.

The central concerns of The Omnivore’s Feast experience probe that guided our research are:

What can we learn about what matters most to people by     exploring their personal connections to food?

What insights can we glean by enabling users to explore and map out their personal food culture?

A study was conducted at xlab that included Omnivore’s Feast session analytics, biometric data capture with iMotions and Affectiva’s Emotion AI, ethnographic interviews, and autobiographical storytelling. 

Insights from the study will inform product refinement, identification of opportunity areas for business development, and concepts for future experience prototypes.


Project Credits

Joseph Banh / Concept, strategy, research, research design, copywriting, product owner

Anthony Furia / Creative concept, creative direction, UI/UX, data planning & management

Frank Bar / Motion design

Raza Merchant / Web development, analytics dashboard

Rina Reyes / Design


Legend

  1. The Omninvore’s Feast concept riffs off of the concept of the Omnivore’s Dilemma - or the challenge of deciding what to eat given humans can eat a variety of plants, animals, and insects. 
  2. Key ingredients were researched and incorporated for deeper exploration
  3. Tastes, flavours, food processes, symbolism and contexts were researched and presented to encourage reflection and comparison. A Feast profile was built at the end of the user session based on session analytics as a takeaway to be used in follow-up research sessions as a secondary probe.
  4. 50 dishes were selected that are representative of Toronto’s diverse inhabitants and cultures
  5. iMotions biometric research software with Affectiva Emotion AI was utilized during research sessions to understand the emotional dimensions of participant’s live experience and narrative recall of meaningful food-related episodes
  6. A view of the research set-up at xlab
  7. Miles giving good boy energy
  8. Physical Feast cards were designed as memory prompts for the  autobiographical narrative session of the study
  9. Participants during research sessions























NEXUS


Spatial sound studies



I spent a month in Berlin participating in a spatial sound design residency at MONOM, home of the original 4DSOUND System. As part of my explorations of sensory experience, embodiment, and emotion, this was a unique opportunity to learn from some incredible artists and sound designers. 

Over the course of a month we learned different soundmaking and recording techniques, a bit about the science of sound, how to collaborate on sound-based projects and finally, worked in groups to produce a final project that was publicly performed at the close of our residency. 

Our project was called Nexus: The Body and Consciousness, an exploration of the body as an interface between the sensate world and the conscious mind. Riffing off of the Minimalist approach to sculpture, we created sound sculptures that are designed to stimulate the body and the mind. A scenography plan was also developed to incorporate the use of lighting effects and smoke to further reinforce the mixed and integrated nature of sensory perception. Different soundscapes, discrete sounds, and noise compositions were used to guide visitors on an emotional arc throughout the performance. 

The videos here are an attempt to visually document what is primarily an auditory experience that could only be experienced to full effect in the MONOM system. 


Project credits

Concept / Joseph Banh, Christian Duka, and Viola Ahrensfeld

Lighting Concept / Joseph Banh with kind advice and support of Florence To

Sound Design & Composition / Christian Duka with support of Joseph Banh

Voice work / Christian Duka, Joseph Banh, Viola Ahrensfeld, and Ece Tankal

Special thanks to MONOM technical team / Vlad and Raul.


Legend

  1. Funkhaus, Berlin, giving classic East German vibes with incredible facilities for cultural production and performance 
  2. Funkhaus on the bank of the Spree River
  3. Monom, spatial sound system at Funkhaus
  4. Monom, spatial sound system at Funkhaus
  5. Monom, spatial sound system at Funkhaus
  6. Experimenting with binaural audio production with Antoine Bertin
  7. Flyer for our residency project, Nexus: The Body and Consciousness. Monom system UI visualizing our spatial sound composition.









NISSAN


Evolving the vehicle purchase experience



Project Description

Client: Nissan Canada Inc. (NCI)

Nissan Canada was undergoing a national relaunch and rollout of a new image program to update the dealership and physical brand experience. Part of this program was the Nissan Personalization Studio, a large mixed media interactive experience located in the dealership space. The interactive was an accessory sales tool that incorporated physical products and a digital interactive that lets users personalize their vehicles with trims, finishes, and genuine Nissan accessories.

Our team at Avida was engaged to provide full turnkey design, development, and implementation services for the national network. 


Services

The Avida team worked closely with the client to develop a concept for the Canadian NPS (with reference to an American version that was already in-market). We defined product requirements, established user experience priorities, developed and refined the product backlog, adapted our working processes and methods to respond to a complex organizational and stakeholder network, and coordinated digital product development with the design-build and fabrication of the product enclosure and accessories display.

In addition to the customer-facing NPSC product, our team also designed and developed web portals for dealer accrual and onboarding, analytics dashboards and reporting for user analytics, and a comprehensive dealer training program that our team delivered as part of the onboarding process. 

Our team went through a rigorous and iterative process with the client that included: stakeholder consultations, comprehensive product and project planning, interactive product design & development, custom CMS, database, client portals, systems integration, service design analysis, prototyping, user testing, and ongoing product & program management. 


Project Credits

Joseph Banh / Project lead, client lead, design strategist, consultations lead, project manager, product management

Jonathan Agomaa / Product design and technical lead, creative and art direction, front-end development, user testing lead

Isaque Hossain / Front-end and Back-end development, database design

Rina Reyes & Luca Vetere / Content design, content coordination, database management


Legend

  1. NPSC product rendering
  2. Installed NPSC at a dealership in Montreal
  3. Screen grabs of the NPSC interactive
  4. Images of the back-end dashboard, analytics and dealer portal

LIFELABS


Designing a wellness discovery centre



Project Description

Client: LifeLabs

For the LifeLabs Discovery Centre pilot project Avida developed a comprehensive experience program, along with physical and spatial design, content strategy, and recommendations for a dedicated brick-and-mortar space co-located within a major pharmaceutical retail store.

The Discovery Centre is a place where patients and shoppers can learn about key topics related to their health so that they can be better informed to make healthier life decisions to prevent illness and injury, better manage existing conditions, become better advocates for themselves in navigating the health system, and learn more about various health services and products that are available.


Services

Research & Experience Program Design

Given that the Discovery Centre is a learning space within a retail environment, Avida provided insights about informal exploratory learning models used in museums and science centres that informed the development of requirements for the space, types of interactives used, and content strategy.

Avida also conducted comprehensive stakeholder interviews with executives at LifeLabs and its retail partner Rexall to understand business goals and priorities. This was complemented by observational shopper/patient studies, interviews with front-end staff, a literature review of key issues related to consumer health information-seeking behaviour, and analysis of customer journeys and consumer insights provided by the client.


Customer Experience & Interactive Product Design

Based on the Discovery Centre Experience Program, we developed the physical-spatial design and designed a digital interactive product for the purposes of health and product education. There were two user groups that the product UX strategy addressed: self-serve shoppers/patients, and pharmacy/clinic staff. Our team collaborated with the client to provide training to frontline staff and also developed user analytics for the purposes of product refinement in future product releases.  

The design concepts provided were created with scalability and adaptability in mind to work with various spatial configurations across the store network.

There are also opportunities within the concept and content strategy for customizing each experience to specific stores based on themes that could be derived from further customer segmentation or from geographic or demographic store profiles.


Project Credits

Joseph Banh / Project lead, product owner, consultations lead, user research, UX strategy, design & content strategist, program design, content developer and copywriter

Jonathan Agomaa / Creative direction, art direction, UX/UI design, front-end development

Rina Reyes / Design

Isaque Hossain / Front-end development, back-end developement

Weatherston Bruer & Associates (WBA) / Architectural design, exhibit design, FFE
 

  1. Concept rendering for the Discovery Centre (WBA)
  2. Elevations and mock-ups of digital games for product education
  3. Training session led by the Avida team and LifeLabs for front line clinic staff

d

CIBC


Managing an experience program at scale



Program Description

Client: Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)

I joined Avida as the key account lead for CIBC. Much of the work in this period was in relationship management and process improvement. As the provider of the bank’s nation-wide in-branch digital signage network, we worked across functional areas from marketing and IT to real estate to plan new technology and content deployments and manage existing ones. 


Services

Avida provided turnkey digital signage technology platform, content development and management, and remote and on-site technical support for the branch network. We collaborated with the client and its agency partners on marketing campaign launches and special events. 

Of particular note was our work supporting CIBC as the lead sponsor of the 2015 Pan Am Games where we assisted in designing and deploying screen-based content experiences to various brand activations across the city in addition to the branch network. 

We also designed, developed, and managed a digital interactive brochure program for the bank’s digital transformation project. And assisted with the client’s rebrand by implementing creative updates and changes to marketing collateral and assets across the entire network. 


Project Credits

I was the overall client and account lead on CIBC when I joined AVIDA. I worked closely with the MarCom team and partner agencies to build out the program. Today, I primarily consult with senior management on strategic issues and innovation projects related to the program and program evolution. 


Legend

  1. In-branch digital experience including content 
  2. Digital Banking Zone pilot project for digital brochures
  3. Pan-Am Games 2015 sponsorship activations including the CIBC Cafe in Pan Am Park.