DIGITAL DESIGN
01/
SUMMARY
CLIENT
Major UK energy provider
MY ROLE
Lead designer
OBJECTIVE
Design the website for the client's electric vehicle, chargers and tariffs offering
APPROACH
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Hand sketching, wireframing and prototyping
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Usability testing
OUTCOMES
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Hi-fidelity responsive interactive prototypes
02/
OBJECTIVE
My client, a major UK energy provider, wanted to develop their electric vehicle offering in order to gain a competitive advantage as the UK aims for decarbonised transport. A key part of this involved developing the website for selling electric vehicles, chargers and tariffs so that customers would be provided with a one-stop-shop solution.
They had employed a marketing consultancy to perform desk research into customers’ electric vehicle needs, attitudes and concerns. As a result of this research, the consultancy had produced (1) content designed to inform customers about electric vehicles and the various parts of the client’s offering and (2) a basic information architecture for the website.
My task was to take the content and information architecture and turn them into a prototype that could be handed to the client’s development team.
03/
APPROACH
After familiarising myself with the marketing consultancy’s research and their proposed content I:
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Hand sketched several variants of the required pages
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Used Sketch to create static wireframes for the preferred design variants
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Conducted 12 test sessions with current and prospective electric vehicle owners to evaluate the usability of the wireframes and understand their experiences of, and attitudes towards, electric vehicles
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Developed recommendations for addressing the identified issues
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Reported the findings and recommendations to the project team
The marketing consultancy team revised the information architecture and content based on my recommendations and I then:
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Created a responsive hi-fidelity interactive prototype using Axure, incorporating elements of the client’s design pattern library
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Observed my colleague performing another round of usability testing and interviews
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Made design changes based on the insights from the testing sessions
Finally, I delivered the report of the usability testing and the final version of the prototype with annotations for the development team.
04/
CHALLENGES
I faced a number of challenges during the project, including:
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Quickly getting up-to-speed with the project and building relationships with the team, as I had to hit the ground running
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Working to tight deadlines, e.g. having to produce the initial wireframes the day before the first round of user testing
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Satisfying the need to work with the client’s design pattern library and incorporate the new content designs suggested by the marketing consultancy and requested by the Head of Digital Marketing
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Taking the decision to build a responsive prototype (for phone, tablet and desktop) even though only the desktop version was asked for, as I knew that the development team would need all three variants to build the website
05/
OUTCOMES
The prototype I delivered was built as a Minimum Viable Product and the client continued to work with my consultancy to improve the website’s functionality and usability after it had gone live.
The website was also incorporated into the client’s main site and is now accessible via the global navigation, demonstrating the importance of the site to the client’s business.
