EthoSolar was in need of a new website with it's brand adjustment. Instead of putting a new skin on the old site and all of it's content, I was able to dive into the user experience and deliver an experience better than before. The new branding also helped the design to follow best practices for web and user interface.
Phase 1 - Discover
Competitive Analysis
At the time when I was researching for this project companies like SunRun, Vivint, and SolarCity had already been launching newly branded material. SunRun launched a new site with similar business goals as EthoSolar, with simple colors and illustrations, flow, and target market. EthoSolar's business goals were to educate customers about the benefits of solar. The business's tools and knowledge would be a key sales approach.
When I began research I started with key frustrations and reservations to solar installations. It turns out that people have a lot of legitimate questions before installing solar on their roofs.
Journey Map
A few things about the old site that made sense why visitors were not submitting any of the forms or staying on the site for very long:
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To understand the old site better I drew out the current flow of the site and took a few notes... Ok, I took a lot of notes. There was a lot going on, but nothing very useful. The experience was very overwhelming and putting it to paper helped me to see why.
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Diverge / Converge
Brand AdjustmentWhile building this website it was key to develop a brand visual identity. Other companies were putting out illustrations, infographics, and the same stock photos of solar panels. It was important to decide what sort of voice the brand would have. I started the brand development early in the redesign process to help the rest of the project fall into place. The structure of the site would follow the content and visual identity.
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Phase 2 - Define
User Flows
Alpha Site-Map
Phase 3 - BluePrint
Sketching
Mockups
Phase 4 - Create
Note: These pages were build using HubSpot's CMS. Unfortunately, the site is no longer live so I can't show you the completed website. HubSpot was a great tool to build responsive webpages with a great analytics dashboard.