AT&T Rising Future Makers — A Platform for the Moment
A three-phase responsive platform for AT&T's HBCU recognition program — collecting video submissions, sustaining momentum, and celebrating 25 winners without a single rebuild.
Recognition this significant deserves a platform built for the moment.
Business
- A flagship digital home for a culturally significant program
- Serve the full campaign lifecycle without rebuilds
User
- HBCU students browse — and upload — on mobile
- Submitting a talent video must feel confident, not bureaucratic
Technical
- Video upload on slow campus networks
- Three platform states on one architecture
Cultural weight
The platform had to honor the program, not merely process it.
Three phases, one build
Submission, closed, and announcement states without relaunches.
Campus networks
Mobile video upload under real-world connection conditions.
Two demanding clients
AT&T and Translation brand and approval workflows.
I translated the program into the product — discovery through launch.
Owned
- Experience Architecture
- Video Submission UX
- Phase Transition Design
- Client Discovery
Collaborated with
- Creative Director
- Web Developer
- UI/UX Designer
- AT&T & Translation
A platform that honors the program it serves.
Three phases, one foundation
Rebuilding the site per campaign phase risks inconsistency and relaunch failures.
One architecture with three content-and-interaction layers: submit, closed, celebrate.
Clients update content fields, not site structure — momentum never breaks.
The full lifecycle ran without a single rebuild.
Mobile-first as a strategic choice
HBCU students browse and upload on phones, often on campus networks.
Mobile-first hierarchy; upload tested against slow networks with progress and error states.
Anything that created mobile friction was redesigned or removed.
Submission worked where the audience actually was.
Inspiration before instruction
Recognition platforms drift into application-portal coldness.
An editorial, magazine-grade tone leading with celebration; criteria and forms follow.
Being one of 25 students in the country should feel like it.
A platform that reads as an honor, not a form.
Phase-state architecture
One foundation carrying three campaign states.
Guided video submission
Eligibility, upload, and confirmation with zero ambiguity.
Editorial recognition design
Magazine-quality celebration of 25 student stories.
The trade-off — I removed desktop-first features that added mobile friction. The desktop showcase lost some richness, but the audience lived on phones — and the submissions proved it.
What I'd improve — post-submission engagement. Students waited weeks in silence between phases; a status touchpoint would have kept them connected.
Next time — on culturally significant work, every copy choice and friction point is a statement about who is welcome — design with that weight from the start.
