Hero image of the S+C Partners website mocked up within browsers on mobile devices and a laptop
Overview

Increasing customer contact for an accounting firm S+C Partners

While freelancing for Collective Experience, I collaborated on a website redesign for their client, S+C Partners, a chartered professional accountants firm. My role involved strengthening their brand and solving for areas of improvement identified by the team's research.

Role

UI Designer

Responsibilities

UI design, branding

Collaborators

Research, design, development, client stakeholders

Timeline

3 months

Our Goals

Improve findability of services, readability, and overall ease of use 

Help the firm stand out against competitors offering similar services

Establish stronger client branding and business presence

Impact

At the end, we provided a new and robust set branding guidelines that S+C Partners is still using today for the firm's business collateral & branded materials. We also observed positive performance with:

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Customer contact

↑

conversion rates

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task completion rates

Discovery

Understanding user research

I reviewed the team's research outcomes to understand the redesign's requirements, target audiences, business goals, competitive advantages, and key focus areas. The team had conducted:

Discovery workshops

To align stakeholders on project plans, milestones, goals, and requirements.

Journey map

To foster empathy amongst stakeholders by mapping out the experience and users' thoughts, feelings, priorities, touchpoints.

User personas

To help the team and client understand their key audiences, user priorities, and user goals.

Competitive analysis

To understand the market landscape, competitive strengths & weaknesses, and opportunities.

Old landing page of S+C Partners' website displaying within the screen of a Macbook Pro

Key insights

High net-worth (HNW) clients

Target audiences: entrepreneurs, private corporations in sectors like construction, manufacturing, and distribution.

Most sought-after services

Financial advisory, tax minimization, profitability optimization, and managing financial commitments.

Low findability and readability

Hard to find information and low task completion rates from cluttered navigation, lack of mobile-friendliness, and low readability.

Weaker business presence

Users did not perceive the firm as a distinct or competitive option compared to competitors offering similar services.

Problem Statement
How might we design the client's website so users effortlessly discover and choose the services that best fit their needs, prompting them to convert into customers?
Define

Information architecture analysis

To understand the old website's navigation, I analyzed its information architecture using a sitemap. We learned that the website had:

Excessive navigation depth

The site's primary navigation was overly complex, often running 4-6 levels deep with additional in-page secondary and tertiary navigation.

Hidden content

Many pages were unlisted in the main navigation, accessible only through links within the body copy.

Competitive prioritization

We conducted affinity mapping of the site's topics into categorical clouds, evolving these into a new sitemap to identify and extract the most valued categories.

New sitemap created for S+C Partners' website, simplifying their old architecture into 5 main branches

Branding opportunities

S+C Partners also needed a complete set of branding guidelines to resolve inconsistencies in their marketing collateral and website, and to build a stronger visual representation of their brand.

Agreeing to resolve this first, we consolidated everything we learned into a brand identity set through a process of brainstorms, visual references, mood boards, client touchpoints, and collateral mockups.

Moodboard featuring 3 concepts for branding approach
Ideation

Ideation of pages

Once S+C Partners approved the final branding, I conceptualized the website pages, progressing from lo-fi wireframes and design reviews to hi-fidelity prototypes.

A diagram showcasing the 5 phases Discover, Define, Ideate, Design & Test, and Build
Design

Refinements

These are some examples of changes applied after testing during the refinement stages.

Before

Before version of the homepage
Users found the opening vague, unclear about S+C Partners' identity. The four key services were also not obviously clickable.

After

After version of the homepage
I worked with the content writer to state S+C Partners' purpose, converted the four key services into prominent buttons, and moved critical text above the fold to encourage scrolling.

Before

Before version of the client services team leaders page
Users noted a disconnect between photography and page content, and found it difficult to identify individuals or know whom to consult.

After

After version of the Client Service Leaders page
I reduced decorative photography, added individual qualifications, and used clear visual indicators to highlight clickable profiles for each person.

Before

Before version of the advisory services page
Users found the copy too small. S+C Partners also wanted to upsell their services and increase client contact.

After

After version of the Advisory services page
I added icons to accompanying text for improved readability. To increase client contact, I added an "Ready to get in touch?" section to the bottom of pages with a "Contact us" CTA.

Solution

Final designs of the homepage, About page, Services pageFinal designs of the Careers, Insights, and Contact pagesFinal designs of the Client Service Leaders and Advisory pagesFinal designs of the Students and Professionals' career pages, as well as the Insights page

Mobile solutions

Final designs of the mobile screens for the homepage, navigation menu, About page, Service page, and Professionals' Career page

Style guide

Style guide for the new website featuring primary colours, accent colours, iconography styles, typographic treatment, buttons, and final logo.
Development

Development specs doc

As a best practice at the agency, I created a specifications document for our external developers. These docs detailed page types, layout, color guides, and font specifications for both web and mobile.

Doing so significantly improved our collaboration during development, since developers had a shared reference to use as they began their work.

Five pages of the specs document prepared for S+C Partners' external development team, featuring the table of contents, styles, font samples, button states, and mobile view pages as examples

Design QA 

Once the development agency provided staging links, I assisted with auditing accessibility compliance (alt tags, font sizing, colour contrast) and left feedback for developers on design accuracy.

Impact

Final outcomes

The outcome was a clean, modern, AODA-compliant website with significantly improved findability, readability, accessibility, and brand presence.

The new design successfully led to:

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Customer contact

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high conversion rates

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task completion rates

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