Yahoo Small Business

As the design lead on an embedded team, I led my Ready State colleagues, in collaboration with the team at Yahoo Small Business, to refine and grow a 20+ year old brand. We elevated the presales experience by developing a clean aesthetic and versatile site that is flexible to the changing business goals and metrics at Yahoo Small Business, with an added emphasis on product education. Following the site's completion, we took the updated brand, and expanded marketing efforts through display and social advertising, and campaign work. Additionally, I grew our embedded team to include additional designers, of whom I managed, to assist in these challenges.

Work completed at Ready State.

The site's highly visual, tactile look and feel was designed to speak directly to small business owners. Collages of owner photos layered with familiar elements from their vocations are seen throughout the website flow.

Functionally the site is built using a series of components, allowing for ease of development and consistency across the site pages, while leaving room for flexibility in visual design and growth. This was achieved through extensive conversations and working sessions with the product and development teams at Yahoo Small Business to establish different content types and the capabilities that would be possible in each module.

The updated presales site responds seamlessly on every device, providing easy access to Yahoo Small Business's tools and customer conversion at every touchpoint.

Process and Inspiration

The site design was developed through close collaboration between my team and the one at Yahoo Small Business. We iterated on the design, keeping in mind three key principles and values defined with their team: consistency, a clean, open design, and always bringing it back to the small business owner. Through our collaboration and stakeholder input, we landed on a visual design that spoke to these principles and supported Yahoo Small Business's product offering.

Photography

Through my art direction, we met with and captured Yahoo Small Business customers in their work environments, bringing a humanism and depth to the presales experience and marketing materials.

Conversion Funnel

Upon completion of the presales experience, I assisted in the design of Yahoo Small Business's conversion funnel. In addition to applying our established styles to the checkout flow, through our collaboration with Yahoo Small Business we defined states and interactions for each use case of the checkout process, ensuring a seamless experience for purchasing products.

Marketing Materials

Under my leadership, Yahoo Small Business expanded their marketing through display advertising and on social platforms. We introduced video and motion graphics to platforms like Pinterest and Instagram. Additionally, I grew our embedded team to include additional designers to assist in these challenges.

Prior to our collaboration, each page or campaign was a different project for Yahoo Small Business. Now they have a consistent look-and-feel and brand identity that can be applied across assets and channels of all kinds, from web to email to print marketing materials — treating small businesses like the big deal they are.