A thumbnail image depicting Me+Moo for Cisco, a gamified social app to promote the benefits of 5G in rural areas.

Marketing 5G Rural Innovation Through a Herd of Connected Cows.

Cisco

Me+Moo

Digital PR
Social
B2C

5G RuralFirst is a co-innovation project led by Cisco alongside principle partner University of Strathclyde and a consortium of partners from across business, government, and academia. Its first goal was to create rural test-beds and trials for 5G wireless and mobile connectivity.

The Me+Moo app played an important part in the 5G RuralFirst digital marketing campaign, exciting governments, policymakers, regulators, network operators, and other service providers about the potential of 5G in rural areas.

My Role

Product Design Lead

I merged gamification, social interaction, and educational content to convey the potential of 5G in rural communities.

Platforms

Platforms

  • Mobile (iOS and Android)
  • Web based moderation tool

What I Did

  • Designed a tongue in cheek dating style app, for a herd of cows on a connected farm.
  • Created concepts, user flows, wireframes, and high fidelity prototypes.
  • Led a multidisciplinary team, collaborating with the technical lead, motion designers, and copywriters.
  • Presented concepts to key stakeholders for approval.
Screens from the Me+Moo app showcasing the dashboard, cow data and achievements.

Approach

Fusing humour with educational content
I led the interaction design of the Me+Moo app, infusing it with a playful, dating-app-like interface paired with educational and social elements, to showcase the potential of the connected farm, and 5G in rural areas.
Design leadership
I created wireframes, user flows, low and high-fidelity prototypes to effectively communicate the UX. I oversaw the final design execution of the app, working closely with the technical lead and senior developers.
Stakeholder engagement
I iterating design concepts and prototypes to elicit feedback from project stakeholders. This helped to ensure a unified vision of the app across partner organisations.
Innovative features
I designed unique features like the 'moonitor' for tracking cow activity, achievements to reward progress, moosages for social interaction, scoring and a leaderboard as part of the gamification strategy to incentivise interaction.
Screens from the Me+Moo app showcasing the leaderboard and moosages.

Design Process

Conceptualisation
The initial phase involved a series of workshops with key project stakeholders from Cisco and Harvard to conceptualise an approach to presenting the 5G RuralFirst initiative, this led to a brief for the design of the Me+Moo app which was approved by key partners, including the University of Strathclyde.
An image describing the partners involved in the ideation of Me+Moo - Harvard, Cisco and University of Strathclyde.
Wireframes and screen mock ups
I led the team through the UX design process, focusing on creating an engaging and informative app. I designed wireframes and mock ups to describe key elements of the user experience.
Site map of the Me+Moo app depicting the core user journey, and describing how the invitation system works.
Iterative prototyping
I created a series of low and high fidelity prototypes to describe the user experience, elicit feedback, and unearth problems and edge cases. The prototypes were continually refined to ensure a compelling user experience, a clear product vision, and stakeholder alignment. Prototypes of micro-interactions were used to provide clear briefs to the graphic, copy and technical teams.
An overview of the key screens created for the Me+Moo app.
Detailed user flows
Working closely with the Technical Lead I designed detailed user flows for key elements of the UX, describing specific user flows in detail to support the engineering team. This included flows describing social sharing mechanics, and invitations to join a herd.
A flowchart that depicts the invitation flow when the user invites other users to join their herd.
Gamification
I devised an engaging gamification strategy to encourage social sharing and interaction within the app. This enhanced the user experience, encouraging users to participate, disseminate and promote the 5G RuralFirst message to a wider audience. I worked with some talented copy writers to create engaging content for the  herd achievement badges.
A screenshot from a spreadsheet that lists all of the achievement badges that can be won by the user and the cow in the Moo+Moo app.
Moderation considerations
We restricted free text and images solely to user names and profile pictures, visible only within the user's specific herd. To deter offensive content, we implemented a post-moderation system and provided a feature for users to report inappropriate profile images and usernames through a bespoke admin tool. Herd names were generated using a curated selection of words, combined to ensure uniqueness.  Moosages could be generated from a predefined bank of options.
Screens from the Me+Moo app depicting sending moosages, and creating a herd name. Both were generated to avoid moderation concerns.
Screens from the Me+Moo app show how users select a cow to connect with.

Key Features

Competition
Active herds earn points, the herd with the most points will be entered into a prize draw for the chance to win a trip to the Orkney Islands.
Screens from the Me+Moo app depicting the competition and leaderboard.
Send Moosages
Collect moosages and badges, earn points, and climb the leaderboard. See if your herd can reach the top!
Screens from the Me+Moo app depicting the Mossages flow.
Achievements
Accumulate achievements as you work on growing your herd. Your connected cow collects achievements of her own.
Screens from the Me+Moo app depicting achievement badges won by the user and their cow.
5G Farm
Check out the farm tab to see how 5G connectivity is not only powering this app and creating happier, healthier cows, but transforming rural businesses and communities across the UK.
Screens from the Me+Moo app depicting a hotspots on the map of a farm, and a library of educational videos.
Screens from the Me+Moo app show how users can invite friends to join their herd via Facebook and e-mail.

Results and impact

Analytics
We included analytics for user engagement tracking so that reports could be generated and shared with project stakeholders to evaluate the success of the campaign.
User engagement
The app achieved 10,000 active users in the first week, with close to 100,000 "moosages" sent, indicating high user engagement.
Retention and media coverage
Attained a 20% retention rate by the end of the first week, garnered significant global media coverage, boosting campaign awareness.
Award recognition
The campaign was shortlisted for various prestigious awards, including the Creative Moment Awards and B2B Marketing Awards.

Continuing Partnership

I maintained a productive partnership with the team, working with them across various CISCO digital marketing campaigns, including Tapestry (with Erland Cooper), Cisco Live EMEA 2020, E-Flex, and i-Trace.
A screenshot from the Live EMEA 2020 kiosk created for Cisco.A screenshot depicting the Tapestry website created for Cisco.A screenshot depicting the E-Flex website created for Cisco.A screenshot from the i-Trace website created for Cisco.

Conclusion

The Me+Moo project was deemed a great success by Harvard and Cisco and stands as a testament to the power that creative digital solutions can play in marketing and education. I played an important role in helping the team successfully blend entertainment with information, effectively demonstrating the potential of 5G technologies to a global audience.
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Summary

  • Garnered global media attention.
  • Enhanced campaign awareness and media coverage.
  • Attracted 10K users in the first week, fostering 100K 'moosages' and numerous user herds.
  • Shortlisted for prestigious awards, Creative Moment Awards and B2B Marketing.
  • Maintained a productive partnership for various CISCO digital marketing campaigns, including Tapestry, Cisco Live EMEA 2020, and E-Flex.
A thumbnail image depicting Me+Moo for Cisco, a gamified social app to promote the benefits of 5G in rural areas.