WORLD EXPO 2020
Flying people to the roof of the world’s largest projection dome
📍 DUBAI
PROJECT: EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN
The world expo in Dubai had the world’s biggest projection dome, and S1T2 was commissioned to design the only interactive piece of the dome. An astounding feat of technology allowing people to have their photo taken, morphed onto mascots and flown to the top of the roof.
ROLE: UX LEAD
I was responsible for UX of the only interactive moment inside the world’s largest projection dome, designing a flow that worked first time, every time, for thousands of visitors across languages, ages, and cultural contexts. No pressure.
READ THE S1T2 CASE STUDY
This case study is written from my perspective focussing on design, its process, craft and outcomes. S1T2 has a full case study about the wider project from content to technology which you can read here. For Francisco’s design process stay right here.
S1T2 CASE STUDY The world’s largest projection dome
For World Expo 2020, Dubai brought together countries from across the world through a series of custom built pavilions and large scale architectural experiences. At the heart of the site stood the world’s largest projection dome, designed as a shared immersive canvas to surround visitors in content at an unprecedented scale. While many studios contributed visual work across the Expo, S1T2 was commissioned to create the only interactive experience, linking visitors on the ground to real time content projected across the dome overhead.
The only interactive experience
While the canvas was the world’s largest projection dome overhead, our role was to connect visitors on the ground to that scale through a simple, physical interaction. Visitors approached an interaction booth, used an iPad to capture their face, and saw it mapped onto a mascot on a large screen in front of them. That character then launched from the screen and appeared moments later inside the projection dome above, joining hundreds of others taking part simultaneously across different locations within the space.
A unique UX problem
This is where I was brought into the project. The visual style and art direction were already defined by the wider team, but a critical UX issue remained unresolved. During early prototypes, visitors consistently failed to position their faces correctly within the mascot helmet when taking a photo, standing too far back or misaligning themselves, which broke the illusion once projected at scale. Through user testing with people given little to no context, it became clear that instruction alone was ineffective, and that the interface needed to guide behaviour intuitively rather than tell users what to do.
The process that followed involved extensive trial and error, testing many of the obvious solutions people assume would work. We used written instructions on screen, prompts shown before capture, physical signage, and example imagery, but none produced consistent results and often added confusion. The breakthrough came when working with our intern, Annie, using a real person with a deliberately neutral appearance, lit directly by the screen and softly masked into the interface. Her real facial features and subtle movement communicated what words could not, intuitively showing visitors how to position themselves and resolving the problem.
From Sydney to Dubai to the sky!
The World Expo ran from October 2021 to March 2022, welcoming tens of millions of visitors from across the world, spanning all ages, cultures, and levels of technical confidence. Throughout the event, our experience was used daily by families, children, and groups moving naturally through the space, with people instinctively understanding how to take part without explanation or assistance. The photographs and videos captured on site tell the story clearly, smiling faces at the interaction booths below, and those same faces appearing moments later at monumental scale across the projection dome above. What had once been a complex UX challenge became something people simply enjoyed using, resulting in a shared, human experience that felt joyful, inclusive, and alive.
