CASE STUDY
Dreaming Big for an Auto Industry Leader
Timeline: 6 weeks
Problem Statement:
A leading auto industry insurer was feeling the pressure of major industry shifts with electric vehicles. They wanted to explore how this would change their business model and opportunities to innovate with a new platform dedicated to electric vehicles.
The Results
Product Roadmap
Information Architecture
Concept Brand Refresh
Screen Designs + clickable Figma Prototype for Mobile and Desktop
Site Map
Defined Personas
Team Structure:
Sole designer working with senior client executives (VP’s)
Challenges
This was a concept and ultimately a blank slate which can be a tough starting point
I was a team of one with a 6 week timeline
Key Goals
Deliver a working prototype that would gain interest and ideally buy-in from C-Suite executives.
Site Map - image blurred for client privacy
The Process
Design Workshops (on repeat)
Working with the two key stakeholders I ran daily workshops since we were on a tight timeline. Within the first week we had a baseline product roadmap as well as the end-goals defined. Other outputs of this work were defining content creation, competitors, and potential avenues for monetization. One key conversation here was defining if this was an informational website or a product. It lead to an interesting conversation about the nuances of their business and appetite for buy in from senior leadership when presenting a long-term roadmap.
Information Architecture & Site Map
With content defined I was able to work towards defining primary, secondary, and tertiary content as well as iterations for now, next, and later.
This map was our north star to reference when moving to designing a sitemap. With the information architecture completed the sitemap came together very quickly.
Information Architecture - image blurred for client privacy
Page Layout - Visual Identity - Prototype
With foundational work complete I moved to design iterations within Figma. The client did not have a design system and their brand guidelines although established were somewhat vague. Using the existing brand it became apparent very quickly that the existing visual identity was not matching the vision of my client. After the 3rd round of iterations with no progress I pressed pause and created a conceptual new visual identity inspired by the company’s original logo. The company had been around since the early 1900’s and I loved their vintage look which also played beautifully on the idea of what’s old is new (electric vehicles are technology that has been around a long time). I also was able to reference other auto industry leaders who had recently updated their visual identity with the surge of electric vehicles and looking forward to changes in technology.
This quick pivot received extremely positive feedback from the client. Page layouts and design iterations were created at rapid pace from that point forward. By the end of the 6-week engagement I had fully clickable high fidelity figma prototypes for both mobile and desktop that included animations. I also had a baseline start for a design system that their developers could take and run with.