Workday Customer Experience Center
The CXC relaunch was a comprehensive redesign of Workday’s flagship space, reimagined as a best-in-class environment to showcase our products, people, culture, and innovation.
Spanning a welcome area, an innovation gallery wall, customer activations, a “Forward Thinkers” customer hallway, a multi-function room, and meeting spaces, the CXC offers a customized, interactive journey for both customers and prospects. As the first center to be redesigned, the Pleasanton flagship set the strategic and visual standard for all Workday global centers to follow.
The Impact: This strategic redesign contributed to a 31% increase in visitor volume YoY, directly expanding the pipeline of high-value customer interactions.
Innovation
Gallery Wall
The Innovation Gallery Wall is the heart of the CXC. the Innovation Gallery Wall brings to mind a multi-media, interactive, museum where guests can dive deeper into leading consumer brands, better understand Workday’s history and culture, and appreciate the spirit of mutual innovation and success behind these relationships.
Spanning from the present day to Workday’s origins and early customers, the wall presents a mixture of the following, with roughly 40% of the content focused on Workday culture and history and 60% on celebrating customer success.
I partnered closely with Will Terrell from our editorial team to craft this story through objects, narrative copy, and interactive experiences. By blending analog and virtual touchpoints, we created a sensory experience that invites attendees to engage with the brand on a deeper, more tactile level.
“Incredibly massive thanks to you Mara, for jumping in on a project head first, assessing the opportunities, defining solutions and communicating clearly along the way with internal partners and vendors. Thank you so much for being simultaneously strategic and flexible.”
Process
Once the narrative was defined, I led the strategy for how each story would be physically manifested through material, interaction, and technology. I collaborated with agency partners to explore sensory-driven activations—focusing on how sound, touch, and motion could bring the Workday story to life.
I was responsible for the intentional placement of every activation, ensuring the spatial flow guided the visitor through a cohesive narrative. This included:
Technical Planning: Overseeing installation diagrams and detailed component drawings for electrical and audio-visual integration.
Brand Design: Designing every environmental asset, striking a balance between Workday’s identity and the unique branding of our featured customers.
Prototyping & UX: Traveled to Philadelphia for interactive technology, UX workflows, and large-scale print graphic testing.
Onsite Lead: I managed the full installation in the Bay Area, ensuring the final environment met the high-fidelity standards of the initial vision.
