SAC Website

UX Design

OVERVIEW

In early 2021 SAC decided to start focusing efforts into a website redesign with the vision of the newly implemented Brand Identity and a better browsing experience for clients.

Along with the stated objectives, we wanted to unbury some of the content that was hidden a few too many clicks away and prioritize a fluid experience.

ROLES

User & Industry Research

User Interaction

Visual Design

Prototyping & Testing

TOOLS

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe InDesign

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe XD

Procreate

Process

Discover

RESEARCH

A significant amount of research came from stakeholders. The website needed to flow, showcasing what SAC can do for clients without having users get lost within the site as they search for quantitative information needed to conclude SAC is right for the job.

RESEARCH

We discovered three things that stood out from our competitors:

Lackluster experience.
Lack of meaningful content.
The ones that got it right, stick to a monotone approach (competitors).

SAC is guilty of the third insight, which is one of the primary problems we can solve.

Define

PERSONA

SAC doesn’t target the masses, as opposed to a retail company. The target clients are in construction, General Contractors (GC), which are in charge of the big project as a whole. These projects can range from a water treatment facility for a city in the United States to a new chip manufacturer facility for a tech company. The GC needs to hire sub-contractors which specialize in certain fields such as piping or structural, to be able to complete the whole project - SAC specializes in pipe supports & pipe systems.

Deadlines need to be met 100% of the time due to the nature of the industry; not all tasks can be switched around or postponed. An example, if a pipe spool is scheduled for delivery, construction workers are scheduled to receive and install the pipe, which means pipe supports need to be on site by that time.

Who is he?

Richard Payne
35-55 years of age.
Project Engineering or Project Management background.
4 year college education.

What is his role?

General Contractor.

What does a workday look like?

This person coordinates with sub-contractors to provide accurate information, answer questions per sub-contract scopes, discuss setbacks and manage time sensitive deliverables to accurately coordinate teams to collaborate in the final construction stages.

What is most important when hiring a sub-contractor?

Understanding the process of each sub-contractor so he can gauge how the workflow will be when in coordinating for the rest of the project.
Identify new innovative systems that can benefit the construction progress.
Insights on how reliable a sub-contractor is.
Learn a sub-contractor’s track record.

Where does he go for information?

The main sources come from a sub-contractor's reputation. When dealing with new sub-contractors, an online presence is necessary to engage.

Overall objective?

To find reliable teams with a reputable track record in order to complete a project effectively, through innovative channels that could positively benefit future projects.

THE PROBLEM

The construction industry is black and white and that can make certain communication stale and uninspired. This can cause the experience of looking for new sub-contractors feel like a chore, which often leads to additional steps just to verify if a sub-contractor is a reliable source.

The initial website wasn't design with a specific end-user in mind.

THE SOLUTION

To Redesign the SAC Incorporated website by acknowledging gathered insights, enhancing the user experience through discovery and understanding who the direct clients are, all the while incorporating the recent developed brand identity elements to which represent the core values of the company.

Design

WIREFRAME

I started with page layouts for the landing page. I treated this as the "hub", where all content on in the website can be accessible through this page.

VISUAL ELEMENTS

NAVIGATION BAR & CONTENTS

PROCESS

The visual design took place post the reiterative process in the Design stage. I wanted to illustrate the story continuously and decided the landing page would be a great way to show the process.

Reiterative Process

PORTFOLIO PAGES

The reiterative process consisted of restructuring how we were going to distribute some of the information. An example was the portfolio landing page, specifically the different project types within it and each individual project. This was one of our biggest struggles due to the nature of the project categories that needed to be clearly delineated from each other. Our initial direction was to have all the projects illustrated within the portfolio page, allowing links to expand on the project information, but that quickly got confusing during our testing phase.

Final Thoughts

This project served as a catalyst for me to learn and adapt to the user experience & user interface world. Unexpectedly, I fell in love with the design process and all the insights I needed to consider before integrating solutions.

Although I since have parted ways with SAC, this is still an ongoing project. I am currently developing the mobile experience for the sake of completion and to serve as a portfolio piece.