UX/UI Design Case Study: Professional Website for Acuity Partners
Role: UX Design, User Research, UI Design, Prototyping
Team: Shubhani Jindal, Rayisa Chowdhury, Gerald Bautista
Software: Sketch, InVision, Illustrator, Photoshop
Duration of Project: 3 weeks
The Objective
Acuity Partners is a differentiated strategic advisor to the general partners (“GP’s”) and limited partners (“LP’s”) in the global private markets industry. They approached our team to design a professional website that provides their potential clients the key information for decision making, as well as their differentiation in the industry.
User-Centered Design Process
Research
To design a successful website that meets the objectives of Acuity Partners, our team had to first understand the private markets industry in which they served. We took a deep dive into what the competitors were doing and found that Acuity Partners was the first advisory firm in the market to serve both general partners and limited partners as opposed to firms that work with either one of the groups.
We also conducted user interviews and surveys with general partners and limited partners in the industry to gain insights into the user’s motivations and pain points.
Key Learnings
private market is more opaque than the public market
- General partners and limited partners lacked a clear understanding of what is expected from each other during the funding process
- Client acquisition for advisory firms = dependent on firm’s reputation built on personal referrals within the industry
User Personas
From all the research we collected from user interviews, we organized the data to create user personas: one for general partners (GP’s) and one for limited partners (LP’s) to highlight their motivations and pain points.
1. General Partners (GP’s)
They are commonly known as private equity firms. Their main goal is to pool together large amounts of money from investors to then invest in other companies for a return. In other words, they build success off of securing successful funds from LP’s. However, they struggle with understanding the market landscape ahead of a fundraise, and alignment with what the LP’s are looking for.
2. Limited Partners (LP’s)
They are the investors that provide the funding for private equity firms. Their main goal is to invest in portfolios to satisfy the investor’s returns. They also need to monitor these portfolios throughout the sometimes lengthy funding process, which they are frustrated by. They want to find long-term GP’s to partner with to optimize their time and resources.
Planning
User Stories
From the data collected from user interviews, our team was able to paint a clear picture of the main user story for each user.
An ideal advisor
From the research, we also found there were patterns in what the users looked for in an advisor. These were reflected in the user stories as well. These key determining factors later shaped our design decisions.
Both users wanted to know:
- Who advisor is — advisor’s personality and values are just as important as their work experience
- About advisor’s experience and expertise — users have more confidence in bringing on an advisor that has solved problems similar to the ones they are facing
- How advisor can bring them value, quickly and clearly — time is money in the finance industry!
User Interface Design
Design Inception
During the planning stages for the user interface design, our team created a design inception sheet and mood board to lead the way to a clear and consistent brand identity.
The design of the website had to convey trust and show their value to the users, with an overall clean and modern feel.
Mood Board
The mood of the website would be modern, fresh as well as intuitive. We wanted to convey Acuity’s brand value of “continuous learning and problem-solving” and the meaning of “acuity” through the use of abstract imagery such as icebergs, ocean, thinking brain, and spectacles. This fresh look will hopefully attract users and provide a new perspective among other traditional firms.
Existing Logo and Font Selection
The company’s logo was given to us to incorporate into our user interface design, as well as the teal color in the logo. We chose the font type Roboto for it’s modern and clean look, as well as its variety of weights for a dynamic design.
Colors
We kept the teal and purple colors from existing brand guidelines and added grey tones to balance them — to ensure professionalism.
Iconography
We made sure to match the iconography to reflect Acuity’s branding, by using more abstract icons than literal.
Copy
Our team was provided with some copy to work with from Acuity’s business proposal. Editing the copy to be website appropriate was definitely one of the challenges we faced as a team. We wanted the start-up firm to have enough ‘weight’ as their large-scale competitors, but had to prioritize what information was more important to the users — they are time-conscious people.
Design Decisions
Moving into design, we reminded ourselves of the user stories and of the key factors that affect their decision making with hiring an advisor. We then designed solutions to meet these.
Wireframes
- Want to know who advisor is — show Acuity’s personality through team biography, story and values with use of iconography in About page
2. Want to know about advisor’s experience and expertise — show global experience with the use of logo’s of reputable firms from previous work experience, as well as map imagery on the home page
3. Want to know how the advisor can bring them value, quickly and clearly — clean and clear navigation with headings to reflect information most important to the user. We also went through many iterations of the home page to display information that will be most useful and attractive to the users.
Testing
Through multiple usability testing on users and iterations of wireframes, we received positive feedback that Acuity’s website was more than just a “business card” website, and it was successful in “selling” the services they provide as well as themselves as consultants.
However, we made minor changes to the navigation bar to introduce a drop-down menu with headings, for the time-conscious user to access the information they need quickly. We also moved the team biography’s to a page on its own, as we found some users were looking for this information in the top navigation and not in “About”.
Final Design
After finalizing our wireframes through testing, we moved into hi-fidelity screens with abstract imagery to bring the website to life. I worked with the UI designer on selecting the abstract images and icons that would be consistent with Acuity Partner’s branding.
Prototype
Summary
After the 3-week design sprint, our team was able to create a user experience and interface, that allows Acuity Partners’ main users to navigate easily through the website and gain the information needed to make an informed decision to hire, without being overwhelmed with information. The professional and modern feel was achieved through consistent branding and the use of iconography, imagery, and color. In reflection, the abstract imagery for the hero image could use more exploration to be more consistent overall.
Our client, Acuity Partners was very impressed with our work and will take our design into the development stage.
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