BJERKE / DSGN
Senior Design Lead · IBM
Challenge
The Problem
What we were solving
IBM's enterprise sales process for Cloud Paks relied on complex VM installations to give prospects a hands-on demo. Setup took days, required specialist help, and often broke before the sales call. Prospects had no way to experience Cloud Pak value on their own terms.
Design goal
Design and operate a self-service demo platform that lets enterprise prospects experience IBM Cloud Pak value hands-on — without installation overhead — while running the design team like a development team capable of shipping and maintaining production code.
Constraints
- ·
Design team responsible for production front-end code — no dedicated DevOps function
- ·
Platform had to support multiple Cloud Pak products with divergent UX needs
- ·
In-product walkthroughs built using Appcues and WalkMe required design team ownership
- ·
Production outages fell to the design team to diagnose and resolve
How we learned
Research
Findings
Research with enterprise evaluators revealed the core problem: the barrier wasn't product quality — it was access. Prospects who could experience the product hands-on moved through the sales funnel; those who couldn't, didn't. The design had to eliminate every step between 'I want to see this' and 'I'm seeing it.'
Methods
- 1.
Interviews with enterprise buyers and technical evaluators
- 2.
Analytics review of trial drop-off points
- 3.
Usability testing on demo flows
- 4.
Sales team shadowing and feedback sessions
Enterprise decision makers who hit any installation or configuration step before experiencing value abandoned the evaluation — not because the product was bad, but because the barrier to entry signaled complexity they weren't ready to commit to.
— User Interviews
Sales teams reported that demos that ran from a shared URL closed faster than demos requiring environment setup. The design team's job was to make every demo a shared URL.
— Sales Team Feedback
Running the design team on GitHub, sprints, and agile changed how designers thought about ownership. When you're responsible for production, you design differently — for resilience, not just aesthetics.
— Team Retrospective
How we worked
Process
Research & Discovery · 3 weeks
Interviewed enterprise evaluators and sales teams to map where the old VM-based demo process broke down. Identified that access — not product quality — was the primary conversion barrier.
Platform Design & Architecture · 4 weeks
Designed the welcome web app and mapped the information architecture across multiple Cloud Pak products. Made the decision to build on Kubernetes and own the deployment — not hand off to a dev team that didn't exist.
Build, Ship & Operate · Ongoing
Designed and built the production platform. Ran the team on GitHub, agile sprints, and scrum. Designed in-product walkthroughs in Appcues and WalkMe. Diagnosed and resolved production outages when they occurred.
Scale & Standards · 6 weeks
Project success led to a follow-on engagement creating experience standards for IBM's 200+ products — one project became the blueprint for the broader portfolio.
IBM Cloud Pak Experiences — Homepage
Impact
Outcomes
Summary
The platform drove tens of millions of dollars in Cloud Pak sales — IBM's primary strategic product focus at the time. The W3 Silver Award recognized the experience design. Project success led directly to a follow-on standards engagement covering IBM's 200+ product portfolio.
Sales impact
Scope expansion
Industry Recognition
The IBM Cloud design team is thrilled to announce that we've received a Silver Award in the 14th Annual W3 Awards for the design and experience of the IBM Cloud Pak Experiences website.
IBM Cloud Design Team