Margherita Cucchi
Digital Product Designer
ASK
For the Spring–Summer 2026 collection, Diesel aimed to transform the traditional fashion show into a citywide, participatory experience, extending the runway to the streets of Milan.
The goal was to bring the brand closer to the public through a gamified format blending fashion, technology and urban discovery.
SOLUTION
A mobile first web-app designed to guide users through an interactive city-wide treasure hunt, blending gamification and UX-driven strategy to foster exploration, engagement, and brand connection.
GOALS & KPIs
The challenge invited participants to embark on a real-world fashion quest across Milan. Within just three and a half hours, from 7:30 PM to 11:00 PM, players were tasked with finding and scanning 34 transparent eggs hidden throughout the city.
Each discovery revealed an exclusive look from the Diesel Spring/Summer 2026 collection, while the fastest 20 hunters who completed the full route unlocked special prizes designed by Diesel. The promise of limited rewards and time-bound competition turned the entire city into a fashion-fueled race against the clock.
The activation was designed around clear business and experience goals:
Lead generation
Drive traffic to physical stores
Increase engagement before, during, and after the fashion show
Create hype beyond the traditional runway format
THE CHALLENGE
The project came with several key constraints:
One city, one journey: multiple physical locations across Milan had to be coordinated into a single, coherent digital journey, connecting installations, QR codes and users in real time.
Balance UX Clarity and Playfulness: the experience needed to be immediately intuitive for first-time users, designed for outdoor context where people were moving, distracted and under time pressure. The activation had to feel playful while maintaining clarity and performance.
Cross-platform performance: the web app had to function seamlessly on both iOS and Android, supporting high traffic and real-world usage conditions.
THE EXPERIENCE
At the core of the experience was an interactive radar designed to guide users through the city. As participants moved across Milan, the radar revealed nearby eggs in real time, acting as a navigational tool to reach each location. Once an egg was found, users scanned the QR code to collect it and track their progress live.
THE PROCESS
Starting from Diesel’s objectives and KPIs, I mapped the end-to-end user journey across three core phases:
Pre-event: registration, onboarding, and expectation-setting
Live experience: navigation, QR scanning, progress tracking, and real-time feedback
Post-event: continued engagement and brand connection
To ensure the experience felt intuitive in a real-world setting, we built rapid prototypes and tested them directly in the streets of Milan. These tests helped refine navigation logic, radar interactions, and scanning behaviors, reducing friction and increasing clarity during live participation.
In parallel, I developed the visual direction through moodboards and multiple UI proposals, translating Diesel’s bold, expressive identity into a mobile-first interface that remained legible, usable, and engaging under dynamic conditions.
I contributed across the entire UX/UI process, focusing on:
UX strategy, benchmarking and journey definition
User flows and wireframes design
UI direction and visual exploration
Design system and motion design
Prototyping and usability validation
THE RESULTS
The activation engaged over 8,000 participants, generating more than 24,000 QR scans and a large volume of user-generated content across social channels. Over 500 users completed the entire hunt, exceeding engagement expectations and driving measurable increases in both store visits and online traffic.
Because of the results and the quality of engagement, Diesel later asked us to explore how the experience could be replicated in other cities as well.