An immersive environment, that encourages exploration and rewards curiosity. These were the opening principles that led development of a creative platform for this website.
We needed to create a flow that was seamless in it’s progression from one page/section to the other. But also replicated the experience on mobile.
The basis, for understanding how to approach this brief, was drawn from keywords found in Guerrilla’s own brand description and in my paraphrasing of the brief’s KPIs. We paired these keywords to build creative & design principles that would influence the web design from start to finish.
This important identification of a creative grounding, allowed us to split the important considerations of web design (Visual, System/Nav & Content/Copy/Micro Animations). Creating a focus on various functions and creative concepts on how to execute that most in line with the design principles.
Understanding what exists and the different functionalities, is often the best way to jumpstart a product concept sprint. Referencing for different aspects of design opens up a creative’s perspective and adheres to the first step of design thinking (Understand, Observe, Visualise & Iterate).
The rules of ‘working smart not hard’, dictates that diligent preparation before a task can save energy and time. I agree.
Before reaching the testing and iteration phase of design, we need to observe and understand how the current site is interacted with, how users navigate, what they are looking for and why they might prefer Guerrilla’s Instagram over the website. But notably, as is with this case, in the absence of conclusive data (Google Analytics was disconnected) we must observe from other sources, as well as first hand surveys.
Unfortunately the opportunity to do this was cut short.
Even so, the show must go on. Using some determinative heuristics (definitely open to biases) and second hand research & surveys, we were able to paint a generic user profile. Which helped in identifying goals and motivations behind our target audience, as well as furthering our understanding of our existing audience.