overview
Faces of the Future was a mobile-first interactive artwork created for the USA Visit of Aga Khan V — the spiritual leader of the global Ismaili Muslim community, and my own. The experience honored the history of the U.S. Ismaili community, which began with a generation of young students who crossed oceans in pursuit of education and opportunity. That legacy was represented through 500+ institutions and 1,500+ student stories, displayed on a 6×12 ft aluminum installation and brought to life through a connected digital experience.
In just 3 weeks, I co-led UX/UI design for this mobile-first platform, connecting the physical artwork to a digital storytelling experience using NFC technology. The platform engaged 10,000+ multi-generational attendees at the live event and now permanently resides at the Ismaili Center USA.
MY Role
TEAM
TIMELINE
TOOLS
Mobile-First
NFC Interaction
Physical-Digital Experience
Live Event UX
10,000+
500+
1,500+
The Challenge
Faces of the Future had to succeed at the intersection of physical space, live technology, and cultural significance — all within three weeks. The platform needed to engage thousands of attendees across generations, many of whom had never encountered NFC interactions before, while scaling gracefully across 500+ institutions and 1,500+ student stories. What made this uniquely difficult was that requirements weren't fully defined at the start. They emerged, shifted, and clarified in real time as the build progressed — demanding modular design, reversible decisions, and adaptability over pixel perfection.
Challenge 01
3-Week Live Debut
Every decision had a hard deadline. There was no post-launch iteration window — the experience had to work for 10,000+ attendees on day one, in a live event environment with no margin for critical failure.
Challenge 02
Bridging Physical and Digital
The installation was a 6×12 ft physical artwork with 500+ university logos, each tied to an NFC tag. Helping visitors locate their institution on the board — and move fluidly between the physical and digital layers — was a design challenge as much as a technical one.
Challenge 03
Multi-Generational Audience
The installation needed to work for teenagers, parents, and elders attending together. Many had never used NFC interactions before. Onboarding had to be near-invisible — heavy instruction would have broken the experience before it began.
Challenge 04
Content at Scale
The system had to surface 1,500+ individual student stories and 500+ institutions without overwhelming the interface or sacrificing the dignity and cultural weight the content deserved.
design process
Co-Leadership & Collaboration
I co-led UX/UI design alongside another designer, dividing work by feature. The interactive NFC experience — the core of the installation — was designed jointly, given its complexity. Content-heavy pages such as the institution directory and student profiles were split and cross-reviewed. I also designed the physical plaque accompanying the installation, which introduced visitors to the experience, explained the NFC interaction, and provided a way to access the platform before engaging with the artwork.
Our closest collaborators throughout were the PM and engineering team. Daily standups and ongoing working sessions ensured that design decisions stayed technically feasible and that handoffs moved quickly.
Feature-Based Milestones
Rather than designing the full system upfront, we structured work around feature-based milestones — NFC profile reveal, institution directory, student search, and so on. For each feature, we defined scope and edge cases, created user flows, developed wireframes, built interactive mobile-first prototypes, conducted a design review with stakeholders, and handed off to development. Once a feature moved into build, we immediately began designing the next, creating parallel momentum across the team.
Rapid Design–Development Feedback Loop
Turnaround between design and development was intentionally tight. As features were built, we tested them in real time and passed back refinements, usability adjustments, and clarifications — maintaining a continuous cycle of design → review → develop → test → refine. Because requirements evolved during the build, this close loop was critical to staying coherent across a system that was changing beneath us.
key design decisions
1
Designing Onboarding for Every Generation
Stakeholders initially requested detailed on-screen instructions to explain the NFC interaction. Rather than adding heavy text, we designed a layered guidance system that spanned both the physical and digital experience. Custom tap icons and concise microcopy communicated the interaction directly in the interface; a persistent help icon opened a more detailed guide for users who needed it; and a physical plaque beside the installation explained how to engage before visitors even reached the board. During testing, users across age groups were able to understand the tap interaction quickly — confirming the approach worked without cluttering the interface.
The Interaction Guide walks users through the 3 methods available to explore the installation and student stories.
2
Turning the Fallback Into a Feature
Because the experience relied on live technology, we needed the platform to remain usable if NFC scanning, photo recognition, or connectivity failed. We introduced a searchable institution directory accessible from the homepage as a reliable fallback. In designing it, we identified another genuine use case: many visitors would want to search for a specific student, not just browse by school. This led us to propose a dedicated student directory — filterable by student name and institution. Rather than feeling like a backup, both directories became a distinct and valuable way to explore the installation in their own right.
Visitors can search for institutions or specific students, filtering by institution as needed. Full names are supported in search to help families and peers find individuals, but last names are never displayed on profile cards.
3
Bridging Physical and Digital Experience
With 500+ university logos on a 6×12 ft board, locating a specific institution in a crowded event environment was a real challenge. While the NFC interaction worked well once users found their school, many needed help finding it first. We introduced a "Find Logo" popover on each institution's digital page, indicating which of nine zones on the physical board their logo appeared in. This small interaction gave users a bridge between the digital and physical layers — and meaningfully reduced the friction of navigating a large, dense artwork.
The Find Logo feature is persistent on each institution landing page so that the user can locate the logo from anywhere on the page.
4
Balancing Student Privacy with Discoverability
The platform showcased real student stories, which required careful handling of personal information. Last names were hidden on student profile cards to protect privacy. However, with 1,500+ stories in the system, searching by full name was the most practical way for families and peers to find a specific student. We resolved this by allowing full-name search within the system while displaying only first names on profile cards. The full name existed solely to power search — it was never surfaced publicly. This allowed intentional, personal discovery without exposing student identities to casual browsing.
Searching by full name renders accurate results, but still keeps last names hidden.
5
Physical Plaque as Part of the Experience
The plaque accompanying the installation wasn't an afterthought — it was a deliberate design touchpoint. It introduced visitors to the experience before they approached the board, set expectations for the NFC interaction, and provided a QR code to access the platform directly. Treating the plaque as part of the designed system, rather than a logistical necessity, ensured the physical and digital experience felt cohesive from the first moment of engagement.
Designed to accompany the installation, the plaque introduced visitors to the experience, explained the NFC interaction, and provided a QR code to access the platform directly before engaging with the artwork.
Impact
Faces of the Future launched on time at a once-in-a-generation community event and performed without critical failure across a three-week design and build cycle. The platform engaged 10,000+ multi-generational attendees, surfaced 500+ institutions and 1,500+ student stories, and held up under the demands of live-event traffic. Its permanent home at the Ismaili Center USA means the experience continues to reach visitors long after the event — extending a community milestone into an enduring piece of institutional memory.
Learnings
Faces of the Future reinforced how much design work happens outside the screen. The physical plaque, the zone-based "Find Logo" interaction, the layered onboarding system — each of these required thinking about how people move through a space, not just how they navigate a UI. That kind of bridging between physical and digital environments is a design challenge I want to keep exploring.
Working within a three-week timeline alongside an engineering team also sharpened my instincts around reversible decisions. When requirements are evolving and the clock is running, the most valuable thing you can design is something that can absorb change without breaking — modular patterns, flexible content structures, graceful fallbacks. Designing for resilience, not just for the happy path, became the organizing principle of the entire project.
Designing for my own community also carried a particular kind of responsibility. I could move faster on decisions where I had cultural context, and I could advocate with conviction for tone, dignity, and the weight of what was being represented. But that proximity also required staying honest about the limits of my own perspective — not every Ismaili attendee experiences the community the same way I do.
Next Steps
If the experience were to evolve, I'd explore ways to surface patterns across the installation — visualizing connections between institutions, majors, or geographic regions to reveal deeper stories about the community's educational journey. The platform was also designed as a mobile-first MVP because interactions were anchored to the physical installation in Texas. A natural next step would be adapting the experience for desktop, allowing Ismailis across the country to explore the stories without being physically present.