Role: Lead Experience Designer
Agency: Wunderman Thompson
Client: GE
Year: 2023
Project Overview
The project aimed to unify 12 businesses under the new GE Vernova brand and deliver a best-in-class digital experience within a tight 7-week deadline. We collaborated closely with stakeholders and external branding agency InterBrand, utilizing a 2-week immersion period followed by 2 design sprints to develop a user-centric design strategy that aligned with GE Vernova's brand values and business objectives.
My Contribution
As lead UX designer, I conducted stakeholder workshops to determine our target audience, wireframed priority pages, collaborated with the UI team to refine designs and ensured accurate implementation by working closely with the development team.
Discovery Phase
During this short but intensive collaborative phase, I quickly absorbed all existing knowledge, data, and insights, working closely with GE stakeholders and their external branding agency to define what success meant for their initial digital experience, and how it should come to life. To achieve this, I conducted a total of 3 stakeholder workshops and numerous meetings with stakeholders and the technical team. Within this 2-week period, we were able to define the following outcomes:
+ Distilled learnings and implications from all past work (previous GE spinoffs)
+ Clear objectives, requirements, and outputs
+ Component library and recommendations
+ Technical constraints and requirements
+ Sitemap
+ Section/page briefs for each key area of the website
+ Backlog and sprint plan
Image: excerpt from our first discovery workshop where we aimed to understand our key audience and define a successful user journey for them
Image: excerpt from our first discovery workshop where we aimed to understand our key audience and define a successful user journey for them
Design Sprint 1
With a better understanding of our target audience, sitemap, and priority pages, I began building more robust wireframes, utilizing insights from the discovery phase and new brand guidelines to create clear building blocks. As content was limited throughout the project, I focused on ensuring that the wireframes accurately reflected the brand's voice and tone. We collaborated with the digital team in recurring meetings, leveraging existing components where possible and taking all requirements into account to minimize development time.
The new wires provided a solid foundation for quick feedback rounds with the GE Vernova management team, ensuring a user-centric approach before heading to UI design.
Design Sprint 2
After completing and gaining approval for the wireframes, I collaborated with two talented UI designers on the project, allowing us to work swiftly and efficiently towards the upcoming project deadline. Leveraging the responsive grid, design system, and creative direction, I provided variations for several priority pages and sections, such as the site navigation.
Additionally, we began sharing some of the completed UI work with the development team during this phase, allowing them to start building and seek clarification where necessary.
Handover
We successfully delivered all designs to the development team within the promised 7-week period, allowing one week for any final questions and tweaks. This project was a significant accomplishment, uniting 12 businesses under a bold new energy brand and rallying a team of over 70,000 talented employees to drive positive change in the energy transition. I am proud to have contributed to this effort and am excited to see the impact that GE Vernova will have on the industry and the world.
