The original purpose of this project was to introduce a new product offering from the clean energy startup Inspire, but blossomed into an entire brand repositioning and site wide revamp.

Previously, membership was relatively passive, as the primary touchpoint between Inspire and the customer was as a line item on their current utility provider bill. This new product offering would completely change that. Customers in eligible states could now pay and manage their utility needs directly through Inspire, as well as receive personalized insights into their energy usage and carbon output through the app or online dashboard. Because of this, we wanted to overhaul the existing brand story with one that was more active, inviting users to “join the movement” rather than simply “sign up.”

Our team had approximately six weeks to complete strategy, UX, and visual design of the existing website and two additional landing pages.

Role: UX Design and Strategy

Tools: Figma, Keynote

MESSAGING STRATEGY

I collaborated with our lead strategist and creative director to ensure that the new brand messaging was coming through in copy, design, and site hierarchy. Rather than calling out this new immersive membership experience as a separate product, it became engrained with the brand story and woven throughout the entire site experience.

One of the most important pages that needed to reflect this new direction was the homepage. This page functions as the entry point to the brand, providing potential customers details about what Inspire offers and compelling reasons as to why they should consider membership.

Along with updating the existing site, we created four new landing pages: two that introduced Inspire in new locations (two different product offerings), and two for users that tried to sign up, but were in ineligible locations (one for “coming soon” locations, and one for locations with undetermined launch timing).

Our primary goal was to build excitement around becoming a member and signing up to make a positive impact. With a product as complex as clean energy (intangible and difficult to quantify for those new to the subject), simplicity was key. We also knew from preexisting audience research that a significant portion of Inspire’s targeted segment were mostly interested in the social aspect of signing up (as in, the ability to show off to others how much they care about the environment), and were less interested in getting in the weeds about what clean energy is and how it works.

CONTENT STRATEGY

With this new strategy in place, we needed to ensure that the pages on the site and hierarchy of content was logical. The following updates were recommended:

1. Collapse the Explore Plans page and make the Your Inspire Membership page more detailed. Since Inspire now primarily only offers one full service product, keeping the Explore Plans page could confuse users into thinking that there was more than one option to choose from. We also know from historical customer feedback that the transition process can be confusing, so our goal was to mitigate hesitancy by proactively addressing these types of concerns.

2. Renaming Your Impact to Impact with Inspire. The word “impact” can sometimes have a negative connotation, so we wanted to make sure that we were consistently using it in a positive way throughout the site. Your Impact could be perceived by users to mean that what you’re currently doing is having a negative impact on the planet, whereas Impact with Inspire indicates that you can make a positive change when you become a member.

3. Move the leadership content from the About Us page to its own page, and rename the About Us page to Our Story. Because we now had a more fleshed out brand story to tell, we wanted to devote an entire page to sharing it, as well as add more content into the leadership section that helped continue the brand story through the people that work there. Changing the page title also reinforced how thoughtful Inspire was in its approach; rather than just introducing the brand and the founder, they have a long term mission and impact insights to share. 

AUDIENCE STRATEGY

Finally, we wanted to ensure that each page had a clear goal and defined target audience. Because Inspire is a startup, speaking to investors and media is a significant part of the current site strategy. Inspire leadership needs to be able to point potential investors or interested journalists to specific parts of the website that can speak to the brand vision and company happenings. For pages that are primarily targeted towards potential customers, we wanted to define which were informational versus conversion focused. 

Strategy and UX worked closely throughout the duration of this project. Wireframes were annotated to point to these different strategic approaches and all copy and design updates. As we moved into design, wireframes were approved by Inspire’s development team to ensure that pages were buildable and realistic provided the short turnaround time. Design was able to move quickly to deliver the site updates and new landing pages, and the work is now live on their website: inspirecleanenergy.com.