Regulation Readiness
Project Overview
Regulation Readiness is a centralized landing page experience that showcases BNY Mellon's deep expertise on regulatory issues, while providing clients with a consistent destination for key information on regulations that may impact their business. The design suggests the notion of a road on which clients can navigate forwards or backwards through the regulatory landscape to interact with location markers that represent various rules across regions.
I was introduced to the project during my first week at the organization, when it was brought to my attention that the design was not mobile-friendly. In fact, the system required the user to rotate his or her device in order for the experience to work at all. My goal was to deliver a responsive version of the desktop view that remained true to the concept of travel and navigation.
Strategy
Creating a responsive solution was quite challenging. For one – I was a new employee who was trying to understand the organization; two – I had little insight into the project's requirements and had scarce opportunity to catch up; and three – the core team was expecting to see an immediate impact from their creative lead (me).
Without guidelines or specifications, developing a solution required some reverse engineering. I broke the whole of the design into its parts so that I could better understand how the system was organized to deliver information to the user.
Wireframes
Once I identified the model, I had to learn how to play the chords. I tested out whether or not there was some inherent design solution present in the blueprint I had developed. The flat design of the road felt similar to an overhead satellite view of a map, however, the circular location markers were too small and didn't reveal enough information for them to be truly useful or engaging.
My second attempt was more promising. I moved away from an overhead satellite view to a more eye-level, steering wheel approach. The user would be able to navigate through the regulatory landscape by using his or her thumb to quickly jog through data points. This UX had a lot of stakeholder buy-in, but the concern was that the interface might not be intuitive enough for the audience.
Third time is a charm, as they say. I pivoted to a more traditional timeline, where the user could drag a marker within a lane to learn more about a regulation. I also provided non-linear navigation to access specific data more easily. Although the steering wheel felt a bit more dynamic, the lane design was friendlier to a wider range of devices, including tablets. The goal here was progressive enhancement — if I could get this to work on a iPhone, I could get this to work on the much larger iPad.
Visual Designs
The visual design process was very similar to the wire-framing exercise. The project's quick turnaround demanded that I work in high fidelity from the very start. Looking at the sheer number of art boards gives you a sense of how complex and rewarding this project was to both me and the client.