2014-2015
Responsive Redeisgn
Project
Intermedia provides small and medium sized businesses with the essential IT tools necessary for running the day-to-day operations of their business. Intermedia’s marketing site receives ~120k monthly visitors which generally fall into 3 persona types — small business owner, IT director, or IT services reseller.
The site was in need of an improved content strategy, design and brand alignment, and a back-end technology that has a widely supported developer community.
Results
Data-driven design is a high priority for me and my team. Strategic improvements have led to:
125% YoY increase in marketing qualified leads
35% increase in leads engaged via content
27% increase in reseller conversions
Involvement. Creative Direction, Concept Definition, UX Design
Research
Working with an outside agency we began this 6 month project with a competitive audit as well as an audit of our existing site content, design and technology, including a usability study. We also conducted stakeholder interviews to get an understanding of how various prospects, customers, and internal teams throughout the organization used the website to support their goals. This work gave us a surmountable amount of valuable input that would guide our design process. The team developed personas to help guide design decisions. We took to the whiteboard to sketch the high-level userflows. Wireframes were then developed to helped to define functionality and design requirements.
Design
By month 2 the team was well into the design phase based on the approved wireframes. A well structured framework was developed to ensure scalability and flexibility across all aspects of design and development. This approach proved to be sustainable and instrumental in meeting business needs and as it has take shape, stakeholders have seen how it can bring our products to life.
Modular Approach
The site was developed to support a series of interchangeable modules which allow greater freedom to make changes happen more quickly. It also allows for more comprehensive A/B testing to ensure the site is optimized for the users experience. Additionally, it aides in making very technical content more easily digestible.
Our modular design approach has become paramount in helping the team deliver, meeting business needs on the turn of a dime. This has impacted everything from illustrations to CMS template development.
Wireframes v2
For version two of the wireframes I inserted key copy elements to help with user testing and to identify gaps in the existing content strategy. V2 wireframes were passed to our SEO agency for final copy drafts and to the visual design team for mockups.
Visual Design
The visual design phase presented a great opportunity not only for branding but for evolving the corporate design strategy to create a more seamless visual experience between marketing and product. Working collaboratively the teams aligned on a visual direction that really resonated with users.
Professional, bold, simple
Designing from the customer back is the guiding principle used in every Intermedia brand interaction. Empathy is at the core of systems and products. Intermedia embodies two core design principles — human & authentic. Our principles scale across all Intermedia touchpoints keeping in mind our brand purpose, freedom to focus on business.
Illustrations & UI Icons
In order to simplify I decided on a reductive strategy for Intermedia’s approach to icons, illustrations and infographics. I wanted to simply express desired actions and business concepts through design that has been reduced to its bare minimum. I used a flat geometric illustrative style in addition to a monochromatic approach when telling broader and larger visual stories.
Responsive Grid
The site was designed using the a basic grid, aligning the titles, images and text at different indentations to create a visually interesting flow to the page. This grid easily adapts to the screen size, via media queries.