Through July and August 2022, I was lucky enough to intern in the Marketing Department at Baystate Financial, a MassMutual firm. My main project was to re-design and update MyBaystate.net, an intranet portal the firm first made with Wix that is used by over 600 associates and financial advisors, daily.
Home Page
The first aspect of MyBaystate.net I tackled was the home page. Using branded colors and typefaces, I shifted the design to reflect Baystate Financial's public facing site. I also updated imagery and moved the internal compliance reminder up to a banner on the top of the page to ensure it was seen by anyone using the site.
Home Page Comparison
Original Header + Navigation
Updated Header + Navigation
Marketing Home Page
The second step in updating MyBaystate.net was creating a new home page for all of the marketing content on the site. Previously, the marketing tab on the navigation was a Wix folder, which is not clickable. Every other navigation tab led to a page, so ensuring there was continuity among all navigation tabs was very important. On the marketing home page, I added four buttons that are also pages available in the sub-navigation.
Marketing Forms Comparsion
Department Specific
Following updates to the Marketing page, I worked on updating all pages for each specific department. Using updated brand colors and typefaces, I reorganized pages and focused on creating pages that require less scrolling and simplifying copy for an easier experience.
Department Specific Home Page Comparison
Life Insurance Video Series Comparison
Estate & Business Planning Comparison
The next step was adding a PlanWell specific section within Departments. PlanWell is Baystate Financial's financial education curriculum to provide client employees with financial guidance.
Advisor 360
Advisory360 is used to train Baystate employees. The previous page listed links and passwords with lengthy explanations. I decided to use a slideshow to reduce the page length, word count and add imagery to the page itself.
Original Advisor360 Page
Updated Advisor360 Page
Findings
After completing this project, I was able to produce a tangible product that is used by Baystate associates daily. This project emphasized the importance of consistency for a brand; consistent feelings created by imagery, typefaces, and color schemes. Additionally, this project helped me focus on smaller parts of usability that must be considered when designing; the length of a page can be daunting to a user, so ensuring my new pages were not only intuitive but simple to use was important. This site is used by associates in many different roles, so creating the most simple site for all was a number one priority.