(1) BRANDING REFRESH

Sisense originally had a white, black, and yellow color scheme for their visual branding. It then evolved to adding 16 different secondary gradients to a sudden regression of four different secondary colors with the original three being set as the primary color palette. As the brand evolved it carried over various color palettes that at times clashed when paired together. To ensure that the visual branding was not only streamlined but modern and clean, I worked with the VP of Marketing and Product to simplify the colors to white, yellow, and blue. Not wanting to completely stray from Sisense’s origins, I made sure to keep the legacy Sisense Yellow to maintain user recognition while offsetting it’s loudness with the blue.

To ensure that the updated guideline reflected on all digital platforms, I recreated the original design system and transferred it from Adobe XD to Figma. As the only designer on the Marketing team, it was imperative to be able to work cross functionality with the Product Design team who operates primarily in Figma to easily access and share assets. This also translated in a seamless collaboration with our development team thanks to Figma’s developer mode. After transferring the design system, I was able to increase our team’s efficiency in shipping net new web pages and other digital assets.

Though the former Sisense website had decent UX, I used Hotjar to better understand user behavior to improve not only the user experience but conversion rates on the website as well. Additionally, I worked with the Product Management team to understand the targeted personas for the site to influence layout design and content hierarchy on each page.

Alongside Hotjar, we used UserTesting to gain direct feedback from visitors on the state of the website. A prominent feedback that was repeatedly mentioned by new and existing users was the lack of product visuals on the website. It was emphasized that the images used were too much “fluff” and didn’t actually show what users would get from signing up or the messaging didn’t quite match what was being shown on the illustration. To alleviate this, I worked closely with the product designers, product managers, and technical engineers to provide actual product visuals that not only matched the messaging, but showcased live features users can expect when purchasing the Fusion platform.

Because Sisense’s product can also be rather complex, certain product visuals were simplified. This is to help emphasize certain features and ensure that users are not overwhelmed. I believe that simplicity is key and that the more the users are able to understand the product prior to speaking to the sales representative, the better the chances of securing the lead.

Creating a cohesive visual identity for Sisense has been quite a design experience that I am grateful for. I’ve learned so much through the process--especially the importance of time management, communication, and compromise. Though I was able to complete the aforementioned tasks, as the sole designer with limited resources and a very lean Marketing team with only one front-end developer, the site has not been completely converted. There is still a backlog of visual assets and webpages to update. As such, I’ve had to learn to prioritize high traffic conversion pages, large scale campaigns, and shipping of design components despite having several of them having “equal weight”. This and having to work with several high level stakeholders (mostly leadership) on expected versus realistic timelines with the given resources and manpower to ship assets. Additionally, this project highlighted the importance of aligning a brand's visual identity to its core values and the need to have a visual identity that transcends the ebbs and flows of a company. Nevertheless, it’s been very educational and enlightening.