Hyundai
Brazil
Information Architecture // Visual Design // Team Management // Prototyping // UX Design
I took the lead on organizing the existing content, updating visuals, and managing the construction of the interior pages while curating and translating content.
Themes
Information Architecture, Visual Design, Team Management, Prototyping, UX Design
Team
PM, Developers, and Myself
Tools
Axure, HTML/CSS, Proprietary CMS, , Excel, Google Translate
Timeline
1 Month: May 2017 - June 2017
Most of Brazil’s business is usually behind on internet trends. Hyundai Brazil was no exception.
Unfortunately, not all countries are as advanced as the US is. However, with this advantage, as a company, we were able to pitch to Hyundai Brazil a brand new, responsive website that would set them apart from their competitors and match their brand’s worldwide identity.
How might we set up Hyundai Brazil for success while retaining the content that important to users?
At the time of this project, Brazil was the 4th largest car market in the world, so having a modern responsive website that was informative about and showcased Hyundai’s fleet of vehicles, service information, and financial incentives was imperative.
Additionally, we had the constraint of launching the site in a matter of thirty days to meet our deadline.
Information Architecture Grouping The Content.
Our goal was to keep the site navigation to a maximum of 6 categories. Any more categories than that would confuse users. Hyundai gave us a preliminary sitemap of what they wanted the site to look like. We took this into account when we named the categories because none of us spoke Portuguese.
First off, I had to translate pages as I browsed the site as everything was in Portuguese. After taking inventory of all the pages and the content that was on them, I began to break it down into sections that were similar.
This meant grouping the site into 4 main sections: Showroom, Buying Tools, After Sales, and About Hyundai.
Showroom
This section was simple to sort but very data-heavy. There were pages for each vehicle and the associated details of each vehicle. This included 360-degree views of the vehicles, vehicle specs, and feature descriptions.
Buying Tools
In this section, there were pages like Buy Certified Hyundai, Consult Offers, Schedule a Test Drive, Build Your Own, Accessories, and Compare sections. This section felt a little like a catch-all as there were many different tools that would inform a user on how to properly buy a car.
After-Sales
Things like Maintenance, Service, 24 Hour Assistance, and Find a Dealership were in this section. Although this section might seem straightforward, it was difficult to piece together because of service part charts, maintenance schedules, and warranty information.
About Hyundai
Normally, on a dealer-level site, this section would not be important, but this was Hyundai’s flagship site for all of Brazil. It included About the Company, Hyundai News, Experience Hyundai, Flagship Store, Ethics & Compliance, Be a Supplier, and Work With Us.
Working in Parallel.
While I was tasked with the content, the lead designer was putting together a new vision for the site. With him having studied the brand guidelines and creating a visual design aesthetic for the site, I was next asked to make a prototype of the website he designed. Though not the best practice, the prototype was used to explain the interaction design on the site to Hyundai Brazil.
Axure Prototypes
Once the prototypes were done, the lead designer gave me a mockup with “pre-fabricated” design blocks to use for building the interior pages. This was done to maintain visual design and branding consistency across the interior pages while I populate them with the newly organized content. I collaborated with the Brazilian-based development team to build the blocks while I populated them. These “Smart Blocks” were flexible to a point, so if the content would not fit, I would adjust the block in the CMS or with code.
THE LAUNCH
Expressing a Brand, But Also Making It Easy To Navigate.
My goal was to create an Information Architecture that would facilitate users finding information on the new site and at the same time convey the overall branding that Hyundai Brazil was trying to match.
