Low utility and readability, resulting in low user usability.

The initial version of the SUXD website featured outdated visuals that did not align with the company's AI and technology characteristics. Additionally, the overall structure lacked a long-term plan. Numerous significant design issues contributed to the web page's inconsistency, low utility, and poor readability, ultimately resulting in reduced user usability.

We conducted 11 in-depth stakeholder interviews, including 4 UX designers, 2 product managers, and 5 engineers.

Based on the platform's target audience, we identified four user groups: UX designers, product managers, frontend engineers, and backend engineers. Through these interviews, we gained a comprehensive understanding of the platform's readability and practicality for each user group.

1. Component libraries can boost the efficiency of UX and UI designers.

The platform's resource and component libraries have not been updated for a long time, and the formats are inconsistent, leading to repetitive work for many designers.

2. PM can quickly and easily develop product requirements using the platform's resource library.

Icons in the component library are disorganized, with varying sizes and formats, causing product managers to spend a lot of time searching for them. As a result, they often stop using the platform.

3. Frontend engineers can learn a lot of design fundamentals through interface design-related articles, which facilitates smoother communication with designers.

The platform has adaptability issues, causing many articles to be incompletely displayed and unreadable.

4. A tech-feeling interface can attract more people to view and explore the platform.

The interface of the platform is outdated, which causes users to lose interest in exploring it in depth and further.

Competitive Analysis & Defining SUXD

We researched and analyzed design websites from 18 companies in the technology and consulting industries. After our research, we classified them into four categories.
Reference Type: Mainly showcasing the company's design guidelines and design language, along with complete resource libraries and component libraries.
Service Type: Primarily sharing design tools and service resources on the website, helping users find the right tools.Showcase Type: Mostly well-established international companies and consulting firms with a mature system, using their websites to promote corporate culture and design capabilities.
Sharing Type: Often found in small domestic teams, characterized by an active and distinctive style.
Based on the internal discussions within the user experience team and the conclusions drawn from interviews, we defined SUXD as a service-type platform. As SUXD is currently only accessible and used internally within the SenseTime company, the team decided that at this stage, SUXD should focus on design language, component libraries, and sharing design experiences and articles.

Consistency, Accessibility, Scalability & Collaboration.

After internal discussions within our user experience design team, we collectively created four design principles as the core values for our design.
1. Consistency: Maintain a consistent design language, style, and interaction patterns across the platform. This ensures that users can easily understand and navigate the platform, ultimately improving user experience and efficiency.
2. Accessibility: Design the platform with all users in mind, considering different backgrounds, abilities, and device usage. Ensure that the platform is user-friendly and complies with accessibility standards to provide an inclusive experience for everyone.
3. Scalability: Design the platform with future growth in mind. This means creating a flexible structure and modular components that can easily accommodate new features, content, and services as the platform evolves and expands.
4. Collaboration: Encourage collaboration and knowledge-sharing among users. Design the platform to facilitate communication, idea exchange, and learning within the SenseTime community, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.

Developing long-term SUXD design strategies.

The Design Leader of SUXD led us in creating detailed goals and a timeline for the platform's redesign.
· The second iteration (the current version that needs to be redesigned) is scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2021. The goals for this iteration are to redefine SUXD, establish the platform's overall structure, and visual style, and optimize the user experience.
· The third iteration is planned for the fourth quarter of 2021. The goals for this iteration are to continuously update SUXD's design language and component library, enrich content and resources, and focus on optimizing operations.
· The fourth iteration is scheduled for launch in 2022. The goals for this iteration are to review the outcomes and issues from the previous two iterations, expand the target audience, enhance platform content, and explore new development directions.
· The fifth iteration is planned for 2023 to 2024. The goals for this iteration are to finalize the platform optimization as SenseTime is expected to go public by then, and subsequently release the platform to the public.

Create information architecture for SUXD V2.0

We developed a new information architecture based on the original IA and the competitive product structures we analyzed. The revamped platform now includes six sections: Home, Design System, Components, Resources, Articles, and About. The Design System, Components, and Resources sections aim to provide designers with valuable reference materials. The Articles section serves as a platform for sharing and learning experiences for all users interested in acquiring design-related knowledge. Finally, the About section offers design-related job opportunities for those who wish to join our team.

Concept 1 -Elements

Irregular Floating Sections: Different sections appear to "float" irregularly on the homepage. When the mouse hovers over a section, it displays a swinging effect. Pros: Highly creative and interactive. Cons: Visually cluttered; maintaining visual consistency may be challenging if a section contains too much content.

Concept 2 - Grids

Different sections are irregularly " floating " on the homepage. When the mouse is put on a section, the section will show a swinging effect.Pros: Strong creative and interactive.Cons: Visually a little messy; if the section has too much content, it is hard to make all sections visual consistency.

Concept 3 - Three-Dimensional

3D Concept: To align with the company's AI identity, a 3D cube concept was utilized. Each side of the cube showcases different content, and clicking on any side directs users to the next-level page. The 3D concept is also applied to the next-level page display. Pros: Visually appealing, strong interactivity, and creativity. Cons: Reduced readability, limited content display, and challenging implementation.

Concept2 & Tracking Points

After consulting with engineers and taking into account the team's internal feedback, we opted for the second concept - the grid design.
Also we implemented 10 event tracking points on the platform's homepage grid. The objective is to assess the success of the platform iteration by analyzing the changes in click-through rates for these tracked events.

We conducted internal testing within the user experience team and subsequently made some iterations.

Success

The redesign proved to be highly successful, leading to a remarkable 128% surge in user numbers and receiving praise from company executives.

Idea & Concept

To align with the new visual direction of the website, we also undertook a redesign of the team's logo. We proposed three initial ideas for the logo redesign:
1. "Humanizing AI" - Emphasizing the warmth and approachability of AI technology.
2. "Unique and representative typography" - Incorporating a distinctive font that stands out and represents the team's identity.
3. "Focusing on the 'S' in SenseTime" - Highlighting the company's initial letter and making it the central element of the design. By translating and refining these ideas, we created a logo that effectively complements the new visual style of the website.