Overview
As the sole designer at JobDiva, I led the entire design work at 70+ people company, branching the product design with design research and establishing the design standard for digital products and content for marketing and sales teams.
In this case study, I am going to give you the scoop on my two-year working summary of leveling up JobDiva's design identity. I will explain what I did and why I did it, plus tell you what I learned about wrangling stakeholders and reshape visual language at a tech start-up.
This article will have 2 part:
1. How I completed the rebrand and unification of JobDiva design
2. How I applied the new design system to JobDiva's product, marketing and sales strategy
Client:
JobDiva
Team:
1 Designer (Me!) + CEO + Multiple Vice Presidents + CTO + CMO + PM + Chief Revenue Officer
My Role:
Design Strategy, Product Strategy, Business Research, Designer Researcher, Product Designer, Visual Designer, Marketing Designer
Duration:
08/2016 - 10/2018 (More than 2 years)
Background
When I join the JobDiva, there is no design culture: no design guideline or design system. The development team heavily influences the company culture. In terms of two years, I helped them reshaped their visual identity, including a new design guideline, design system, design strategy, etc.
This unification of the different design practices is unique and was a draw for both myself and many of the chief officers who work in different departments. B2B SaaS companies at JobDiva's scale have a unique opportunity to have brand, content and product inform each other, rather than be separated by the walls of org division that plague larger institutions.
Challenges
A Hard Look At the Old Design
Before jumping into fix-it mode, I wanted to define the problem of the old design and figure out what is not right and what should be optimized.
I went through our existing user data and marketing data, visited several clients onsite to conduct interviews while collecting testimonials, sat with our user support team and identified a list of issues that troubled our users and clients. The list of problems we identified was gigantic, and the inconsistency and inaccuracy of design across the organization of JobDiva led to most of these problems.
1. The outdated & inflexible visual style pushes the brand to a breaking point.
JobDiva’s old brand is antiquated and inflexible. The product team usually has a very tight deadline and the business is craving a flexible, playful system that would allow them to tell stories, explore big ideas, and promote brand impact.
2. Bare to none design collaboration across various departments leads to inconsistent design standard
Each department advocates its own design tool, software, visual preference. There is no unified standard for various departments to look at when creating content.
3. Each team tells their own stories with incoherent content/concept
Although the marketing team, product team, customer success team, sales team, etc. play different roles at the company, their output content lacks a coherent theme when sharing with the public.
4. Poor organization of information hierarchy confuses existing users and future clients
Exposing a tremendous amount of unstructured material on website and user interface overwhelming prospective clients and existing users and takes them a lot of time to comprehend information on the site.
The current information hierarchy of some system UI is very flat, which makes it difficult for audiences to find relevant content at 1st sight.
5. Extensive use of elusive design leads to great confusion for both users and clients
There was extensive use of complex non-understandable icons. At one time, there were over 40 variations of icons on one single UI card model.
The digital ads running by the marketing team are too elusive and hard to comprehend the message they want to share. We need a better visuals system to help the marketing department deliver the information they want to share with the public.
Learn the Design Needs
Spending Time With Teams
In order to learn how design workes in each department and what design do they work on, I took some time to sit and talk to a few team members at each department.
In the following two years, having opportunities to participate in all design-related projects also provided me a chance to talk to all C-level managers and learn what do different departments need and lack. It helped me establish the list of design works that each department needs and have a clear understanding of the co-relationship of design across the entire company.
Shape New DNA
Define New Brand Attributes
First of all, I worked together with the CEO and CMO to learn the JobDiva’s mission proposition and the value they would like to share with the public. For a B2B company that advocates efficiency and value, making executive decisions understanding what really constitutes design and the tools and processes it wields are necessary. The participation of business leaders proves a good practice to start sowing seeds of design culture in an organization as well.
......More content coming soon ? ? ?
© Harri Lin 2023