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MentorMate site redesign

When I started at MentorMate, I was tasked with leading the effort to restructure and redesign their company site. During this project, I worked closely with the solution architect, development team, marketing team, leadership team as well as overseeing and guiding the design intern.

 
 

MentorMate site redesign

Lead effort to restructure and redesign company website. Worked closely with solution architects, development, marketing, leadership and mentored design intern.

 
 
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Initiative

With MentorMate's annual MobCon Conference right around the corner, this was the perfect opportunity to make an update. This event historically brought new traffic to the site therefore we wanted to make sure it properly represented who MentorMate was and what MentorMate was capable of. As I was new to the team, I was assigned to be the lead experience designer for the project and so I dove in.

 

Problem areas

  • The site looked old and outdated.
  • Bloated with excess pages that were nested, layers deep, with no easy way back. 
  • Content was organized and structured in a way that made little sense. 
  • Much of the content was redundant and repetitive, therefore needed streamlining.
  • Messaging was unclear when trying to gain potential clients and new talent looking for career opportunities.
 

Ideation

Working with internal teams, we started by brainstorming the different categories that the website’s content would flow into. Surveys and Google Analytics showed that much of the site traffic found their way to our services and industries sections. Therefore, the leadership team wanted to make sure that we emphasize the industries MentorMate specializes in and present the best work that has been done for our customers. 

Partnering with the copywriter, solutions architect and front-end developer, we took the proposed categories and ideating concepts to present to the marketing director and creative director for approval. Once we all agreed on our direction, we then presented the chosen concepts to the VP of Design who would bring the final idea to executive leadership for review.

 

Research

One of the goals of this project was to position and present MentorMate as a strong competitor for new business. I initiated research on similar companies around the world and how they presented their work, focusing on their voice and overall look and feel of their site. This set the stage to make sure what we build will align with what's out there and push a unique voice and visual presentation while keeping it professional. 

Since the site was full of content and I was the new girl on the team, I started with a content analysis. This allowed me to understand how the current site was organized, use of existing terminology, how pages were structured and recognize where duplicate content existed. From there, I built out a sitemap to show how bloated and confusing the existing site actually was. The reactions I got from the leadership team was quite comical.

 
 
 
 

Working with the solution architects, we narrowed down three concepts for navigation: Traditional, Midway, Simplified.

 
 
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Once the navigation concept was approved, I built out a new, streamlined and simplified sitemap.

 
 
 
 

Wireframes

Once the structure of the site was defined and approved, I had clear direction to start the structure of the site through lo-fidelity wireframes. Collaborating with the team and my creative director, we reviewed, discussed, iterated and presented the finalized wireframes to leadership. During this process, I began experimenting with color, typography and photography style. This gave me a head start once the wireframe concepts were approved.

 
 
 
 

Photography

A fun part of this project was finding and hiring a photographer (Ken Friberg Photography - highly recommend) that shot and produced high quality photography that represented the vibrant and exciting style we were trying to achieve. I lead the coordination and execution of bringing them on to the art direction to choosing the final photos.

 
 
 
 

Hi-fi designs

Once the typography, visual aesthetic and photography were defined, I brought the new website to life. Working closely with the front-end developer every step of the way. I held frequent check-ins to make sure the team was making progress and development was coming together as intended.