CASE STUDY:
ESG Web Experience

Project: Rebrand Design & Enhance User Journey

Project Duration: Jan 2020 - Jul 2020

Company: Janus Henderson Investors

My Role: Lead UX Designer

WHAT I DID

I took a stale web design for the Environmental, Social and Governance pages and rebranded it to be modern and interesting. Collaborated with internal stakeholders to develop new copy and provided guidance on a better user journey.

THE LOWDOWN

Background

Janus Henderson Investors made a goal for 2020 that their first responsibility is, and always has been, to their clients' interests and goals – growing and smartly managing their capital and fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities. In every market, client demand is also increasing for investment professionals to invest with processes that incorporate ESG and sustainability. As a global asset management firm, the next step to showcasing this philosophy was to create a campaign around what Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) means to the firm both at a corporate level and investment level.

The Problem

We had existing web pages that explained this ESG philosophy; however, the designs were stale and needed to be rebranded. The content was also written in a way that was too longwinded and needed to be modernized. In addition, an added layer to this was a product launch for a new line of ESG products coming in the Fall. This design needed to take into consideration the expansion of content and products.

Research

Competitor Analysis – I researched industry competitors. I looked at how other similar companies were talking about ESG within their firm as well how they designed their page. This research helped to figure out ways that we could differentiate and stand out in the ESG space.

Inspiration Research – I looked around at new web technology, exciting campaign designs and other miscellaneous designs. This helped guide my thoughts as to how I would want to rebrand/restructure and enhance the web design.

Stakeholder Feedback – I held multiple brainstorm sessions with internal stakeholders to gain insight as to how they wanted the content to speak to the users. They were able to provide me the knowledge into how they wanted Janus Henderson to be portrayed and we worked together to help organize the content to fit their vision.

Site Analytics – I collaborated with our SEO team to gain insight into what existing statistics we had for the current web ESG pages. We were able to pinpoint problems and it gave us ideas on how we needed to improve. We also established new goals for the page, giving me direction to hierarchy of CTAs in the design.

Design Exploration

I started with a couple of low-fidelity mockups that laid out content blocks and potential interesting graphical design enhancements. These were used to influence the creation of the content, helped narrow in on the word count and gave the stakeholders direction

Prototyping

I partnered with a member from the development team as I started iterating more high-fidelity designs. We were able to experiment with new functionality ideas and hone-in on making them work before sharing with the internal stakeholders. This allowed us to flush out any problems ahead of time and make sure that the build would go smoothly once the design and content was finalized.

CONCLUSION

The result was a new ESG microsite that was able to align content goals, design flow and user journey. The campaign incorporated new modern functionality and made a better experience on the website. This project really showcased how working so closely with the content team can help enhance design and the user experience.