Tropos Technologies
Brand, web, and UX design for an electric vehicle startup in the cleantech sector.
As Head of Creative Design, I led transformative efforts in a multifaceted role through Series B funding, working closely with C-Level executives and Go-To-Market teams from esteemed partner companies. I oversaw the company brand and its subsidiary, Tropos Motors. This encompassed the design architecture, PR, marketing, and web initiatives.
High-priority business problems were identified through brand and web audits, web analysis, and interviews. Stakeholders were concerned about web usability issues, verbose brand tone, and outdated brand identity. The absence of internal design standards led to operational inefficiencies, wasted production efforts, and unnecessary communication overhead. Tropos Technologies faced a critical need to enhance brand perception. This led to the belief that the lack of brand consistency and marketability was creating a negative brand perception among potential investors before Series B funding.
Competitive Analysis
I theorized the brand image of Tropos Technologies was drastically dampened by their poor web experience. This did not align with the company’s brand positioning as modern leaders of their industry. Competitors had better brand and web experiences.
I theorized the brand image of Tropos Technologies was drastically dampened by their poor web experience. This did not align with the company’s brand positioning as modern leaders of their industry. Competitors had better brand and web experiences.
Web Analytics
Website analytics showed low site engagement and high bounce rates and low average user visit durations. Combining this information with results from a web audit led to the hypothesis that poort wayfinding prevented users from locating relevant information about the company.
Shifting timelines limited the depth of brand and user exploration. Prioritizing goals helped me stay on track with my initiatives.
The brand was ready for a fresh disposition and identity that aligned with the current technological landscape. The rebrand would translate to the company website with an improved web experience. To reinforce design principles, build trust, and streamline workflows, established design standards were weaved into the fabric of the company. A design ecosystem was crucial in increasing production efficiency for marketing and web collateral. To avoid biased business decisions, we opted for more research-driven outcomes by baking UX design into our design process. Our success measurement was based on maintaining this primary goal:
People should feel empowered and inspired when come across all brand touchpoints of Tropos Technologies.
02 Define
Defining target users. Continued research and UX activities facilitated how target user groups were defined. I identified pain points and contributed to the development of cohesive brand strategy at a holistic level. Brand and web design decisions were motivated by personas formed around 3 existing user groups: investors, customers and partners, and technician job-seekers.
Potential pain points caused by the web experience.Investors found an existing disarray of dated and disorganized PR and news content on the website. Customers and partners had limited access to product information because the website lacked visibility into the company’s product line because it was hosted on the subsidiary website. An absent careers page prevented job-seekers from viewing open roles and limiting the company from efficiently filling open roles.
Mapping out the website’s new information architecture.I redesigned the website architecture to solve for pain points discovered earlier in the process. Unclear user flows were addressed with a new site map. Afterwards, low-fidelity wireframes were designed based on the latest site architecture.
Users look past usability issues while maintaining brand perception
Users save time performing website tasks when looking for information or products
Improve brand trust by aligning with authentic brand positioning
Web-first strategy for content, user accessibility, functionality
Activating brand design.
A revitalized experience for the web.
Customers can easily learn about the company and their product line.
People felt the refreshed brand identity was attractive and represented brand positioning. On the website, they could easily view the company paroducts as a result of more CTAs on the homepage linked to the subsidiary brand site.
Investors can quickly browse through press releases and media articles.
Content was organized by press releases, media coverage, and case studies, reducing the time it takes to access information about the company and its innovations.
Job-seekers are enabled to learn more about open roles and company culture.
Job-seekers and the company benefit from a ‘Careers’ page to learn about and fill open roles. The page highlights information about company culture and benefits. People can easily contact the company with an updated ‘Contact’ page.
A successful launch, results, and learnings.
Small-scale guerilla testing was conducted after developer hand-off and the new website was successfully launched. I tracked web analytics and site engagement for 3 months. Task completion during testing, decreased bounce rates, time duration, and most visited pages (home, news, about, careers pages) indicated an effective website redesign with improvements to KPIs.
Stakeholders were excited about the concentrated efforts to elevate the brand and website. Upholding a consistent brand ecosystem and enhancing the web experience bolstered more trust from investors. Architecting the design foundation tremendsouly streamlined workflows, proving that the company had further capabilities to scale its marketing function. In this case, the most effective solutions for Tropos Technologies were a direct result of research and reduced assumptions.