Internal Sales Website
The Yahoo Creative Studios sales team requires a website acting as a hub for all sales collateral. The current website needed a redesign so creating a mood board, thinking through an intuitive user experience, and designing a visual language was the goal. Successfully learning a new CMS enabled me to excel at working within limitations and creating an elegant final product.
Team:
Yahoo Creative Services
Art Director
Account Manager(s)
Lead Designer
My role
I was initally the support designer on this project. My role was to think through the user journey and come up an initial design concept. Throughout the project my role evolved and I ended up leading the design efforts and learning the CMS.
The website is hosted on a CMS called “Highspot” so to design well for a new platform someone has to take the initiative and learn it. Once I took the extra time to learn the platform it became clear I was the lead designer for this project.
Part of the challenge of this project was the timeline. There was no set timeline so I helped assemble routine check-in’s to ensure deadlines were met.
Customized geometric patterns and a duotone palette. A playful use of Yahoo’s colors without going overboard and a friendly image style to ensure relatability.
The final look and feel
“Jules stepped up in a big way, not only helping with the design but helping lead and plan the entire effort.”
-Nicole Stappler, Principal Designer
8.4%
-9%
Increased traffic
Bounce Rate
Previous Design
What can I learn from what this looks like?
Featured content takes up a lot of room.
Data shows resources are VIP, why are they at the bottom?
Visual hierarchy is non-existent.
The aesthetics are out of date and do not represent Yahoo.
Wireframes
Data showed that users had too many choices on the old design. There were too many redundant buttons so my goal was to leverage data and figure out what resources were being clicked on the most.
Here are two different options that I presented. There are subtle differences between them as the team was figuring out what was still important so I wanted to give options for content hierarchy.
Throughout the initial design phase, I leaned into the illustration style that Yahoo brand guidelines had to offer. I created different textures through paintbrushes and used fun and dynamic imagery of people while keeping the color palette bright.
After feedback was received, I discovered that the illustration style was being phased out. So I pivoted to lean into industry trends to create a timeless geometric design style.
Mock Round 1
Key Learnings
Over-communication is always important. Even if it is a quick check-in via Slack, going out of your way to be diligent and establishing a solid direction will always pay off.
Not all CMS is built the same. Since I took the time to learn the ins and outs of the backend it paid off and helped me design realistically. Stay curious!
Two colors can go along way. There is no reason to have five different colors on one page, especially if the buttons have different colors. It is confusing for the user and contributes to a lack of hierarchy.
Use data to figure out the most important elements. It is hard to argue with data and it can serve the wonderful purpose of guidance when the task can seem somewhat ambiguous. If you aren’t leveraging data, what’s the point?
Reduce visual noise. After I figured out what the most important elements are I focused on those data points above anything else. Keep the design simple and intuitive.