Project Summary
Redesign Savant.com as part of an initiative to rebrand and go downmarket to everyday consumers.
Designing the site for Savant, a maker of luxury smart home automation systems was
one piece of a full-scale SF-based Ammunition re-brand after Savant secured $93M in funding to go down-market from premium customers (+$500k) to average consumers (>$500k).
The work required a very-real integration mindset regarding the coordination of many moving parts like working with many internal teams, conducting a competitive analysis to understand the landscape, and identifying an SEO vendor. It also involved working with the NYC-based agency, Konrad Group, who was doing all the development in a Drupal CMS, and were also handling video production as my site plan recommended motion video integration highlighting ownership benefits of a Savant-powered smart home.
My Role
As Lead UX I was responsible for orchestrating 2 main pieces of the overall strategy.
- Design and launch a first-ever B2B Store to enable self-service sales for their worldwide dealer and installer network.
- A redesign of Savant.com, the company’s marketing Web site to leverage the new branding and move down field to average consumers. This included designing initial storyboards for video that we embedded as motion video into the new site (video below).
For both of these projects my role was that of Information Architect and project management lead, coordinating in-house and external resources, creating documentation in Word and wireframing the IA in Omnigraffle. Marketing handled final content and visual designers were assigned to apply the look-and-feel treatment for the site.
This project was primarily design but also project and product management:
- Conducted a site audit/review & competitive analysis. I did a survey of Savant’s competitors, e.g. Control4, etc. to understand the landscape and to come up with concepts that were fresh, modern, and inviting and extolled the user benefits of Savant’s product.
- Sourcing a search for an SEO agency. This involved scouting and nterviewing six different agencies and managing the selection process with key internal stakeholders.
In addition to designing for the site and store, I also did work that included:
- Contributing to the redesign of the flagship Control app. The design team was leading a redesign of the remote control and software control app for mobile and I was asked to design iOS and Android phone and tablet form factors for key areas of the app such as Energy Monitoring (For Android tablet), Notifications (Android tablet), Climate (iOS iPhone), and Settings (iOS and Android phones and tablets).
- Wireframes for Energy Monitoring within the redesigned Savant Control app (For Android Tablet) (PDF)
- Wireframes for Climate control in the Savant Control app (For iOS) (PDF)
- Designed an internal tools, System Monitor, to aid customer support. This was a Residential Monitoring System providing status and diagnostic tools for Savant technical support to use to diagnose and triage customer issues. The work involved taking a Mac desktop-based app and turning it into a Web-based tool, and featured dashboard-level monitoring of multiple systems at multiple locations that would allow a user to quickly triage issues or drill down to detail on a system to troubleshoot.
Complete set of schematic wireframes for the Savant Website Redesign (PDF)
Challenges
- Lacking Product Management infrastructure and a Waterfall process. The company had always operated with direct input from executive leadership to the product team, however the product team worked more as high-level oversight vs. planning and the usual tasks of PM were picked up by a business, sales, engineering or design lead to suss out details and execution. The company originated from (Lucent) Excel Software, a hardware and then software Switching company, and they still continued onward at Savant with an antiquated Waterfall process, feedback sessions came at long interviews and with high stakes and over-sized stakeholder review groups, and requirements were often rigid and inflexible once work was underway with Dev.
- Working with multiple outside vendors. This involved an untold amount of communicate and sit-and-wait a.k.a. Cat Herding to coordinate efforts to land on time with the overriding marketing and advertising strategy for the rebrand. With three vendors, Ammunition, Konrad and a NE-based SEO firm, this involved building good working relationship and open communication with each vendor and trusting vs. controlling that they would deliver their parts on time and meet our quality standards and expectations.
Solutions/Results/Lessons Learned
- Launched Savant.com on time and within budget. The site launched with many accolades but I learned that a strong Product org working to help coordinate requirements gathering and tracking all the pieces would have helped a lot. And you realize that sometimes a freelancer you often must work with what you’ve got and pull a success out of it. That people and process are sometimes the hardest elements of a project to account for and that as a designer it’s often necessary to fill in the gaps and wear whatever hats are necessary to get results.
- Vendor selection matters. I’ve worked with outside agencies throughout but getting to work with top notch talent like Konrad and Ammunition, just made my job easier. They were consummate professionals and came through on-time with quality work. It was a valuable experience in learning how to trust what you can’t directly control, in providing meaningful feedback and assets to 3rd parties that move a project forward, and managing communications and a shared timeline with inside as well as outside resources.