Sabrina Yi-San Liu
Institute for Protein Innovation
Biotechnology Nonprofit
Website Redesign
Biotechnology
Nonprofit
Web Redesign
The Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI) is a young nonprofit biotech startup with unique open science and collaborative business models to advance protein science, accelerate research, drive discoveries and improve human health.
This website redesign project aimed to more properly reflect the organization's identity, satisfy users' goals, and increase collaboration and conversion rate.
The Problem
The Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI) is a nonprofit biotech research institution with the mission of advancing protein science to accelerate research, drive discoveries, and improve human health by collaborating with academic and industrial biomedical scientists. IPI offers its collaborators their protein expertise as well as highly targeted antibody products.
As a young nonprofit startup, IPI was in the process of consolidating its brand identity. With an academic discovery-mindset operating at a scale typically found in the industry, IPI needed an organization website that clearly conveys what it is to its users and how its users can partner with them.
In January of 2021, I joined the team to redesign IPI's organizational website with the aim to do exactly that.
The Discovery
Brand Discovery & Competitor Research
Research of the organization, competitors, and target audiences is the foundation for developing a brand and a blueprint for the site. Therefore, I started the redesign process with a brand discovery and competitive analysis.
Through several informational interviews with IPI's senior directors, I gained a greater understanding of the business goals and model, products and services, unique value propositions, target audiences, and many other characteristics that constitute the IPI brand. I also worked closely with the Director of Communications and Senior Strategist to evaluate IPI's competitors and distinguish IPI from others in same market space.
User Research
A website is designed for the users, but that won't be the case without speaking to them and hearing from them first. I had a great and fun time speaking with academic and industrial biomedical scientists to learn about their experiences and processes when looking for and working with a protein science collaborator. I also wanted to identify any challenges that they encountered in the past, especially working with the previous version of IPI's website.
Research Analysis
After speaking with my users, I conducted data analysis and led affinity mapping sessions with the team to extract data patterns found in the interviews. Through data analysis, the team also identified clear user goals, motivations, industry standards users follow, and pain points when looking for and partnering with a collaborator.
Key Themes
IPI Brand and Business Models
Users were confused about IPI's brand, services, and business models. The previous version of the website did not clearly specify how a user can work with IPI.
Research Labs and Principal Investigators
Users expected to see more information on the different protein science labs and their principal investigators. Specifying the specialties and research focuses of the labs would help users better envision a potential collaboration.
Detail Overview of the Antibody Pipeline
Users couldn't find enough information on IPI's central antibody pipeline through the previous version of the website. Information on the antibody pipeline would allow users to better understand IPI's technology and services and the quality and specificity of IPI's products.
Case Studies and Publications
Successful case studies of past collaborations and scientifically sound research publications are far more convincing than testimonials.
Values and Highlights
There were several specific things users considered to be especially valuable in collaborations - customizable antibodies, the quality of antibodies, expertise, and preliminary data about the products and services.
Efficient collaboration contact
Users were frustrated having to go through multiple rounds of contacts to get to the person who can start talking about business.
"Just get me to the right person."
Question
How might we help users understand the IPI's brand, service, and product values and facilitate an effective and efficient path to collaboration?
Ideation
Organization and structure
Based on the data collected from the brand discovery and user research, the team discussed high level user flows in several white-boarding sessions. Then, I created a detailed sitemap to illustrate the user flows and content that came up in the discovery phase of the project.
Homepage Design
Because confusion about who IPI is and what IPI does was a major user pain point, I designed the homepage to convey the brand identity right from the start. Funnels were designed to quickly lead users closer to their goals:
1) Discover IPI's protein science experts and their specialties
2) Get an understanding of the antibody pipeline
Strategically, I also designed a section to help users understand how to work with IPI. During the span of the project, I worked with video production to incorporate these "How to Work with us" videos into the homepage.
Since successful case studies and publications are far more convincing than testimonials and quotes, I designed a featured case studies section to establish credibility.
Research Lab Page Design
Research lab websites often exist in academia where principal investigators have their own digital spaces to introduce their research focus and achievements. IPI's target users are familiar with lab websites. However, with IPI's business model, it is essentially integrating different "lab websites" into the main organizational website. Therefore, when I was designing the lab pages, I especially focused on consistency as well as scalability.
Users who are looking for a collaboration are not only interested in knowing the expertise and specialties the labs have to offer but are also interested in learning about the principal investigators' research interests. Therefore, I directly worked with these principal investigators to lay out content and media for their pages.
Contact Page Design
One of the user pain points I identified was user often being put through rounds of contact or even having to chat with bots before speaking with the right person with whom they can move forward with a collaboration.
A design solution was including the names, titles, and faces to the contact form to ensure users will be speaking with the right person who can take care of their collaboration requests.
Wow, the site is beautiful, compelling and engaging. I love the variety of ways you're sharing information -- videos, articles, blog, posts, quotes, etc. The animation across the site is sharp and the photos throughout are a wonderful complement to the text. Excellent job.
Samantha Singer, Member of the IPI Board
Reflection
I was really excited when the website finally went live on October 12, 2021. Although the launch date was after I left the team, I was glad to hear updates from IPI about how well the website is being received. Nevertheless, over the course of the project, there were some bumps and precious learning moments.
Always keep things organized ;)
Although I do not have a PM title, I found myself making project roadmaps and giving updates every now and then on the project progress for the team. Having an organized roadmap helped the team stay on track and motivated to meet deliverable dates.
Be flexible
With that being said, there were always unexpected tasks that altered the project plans. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the biotechnology field was blooming and IPI was recruiting more than ever. Therefore, I was requested to also design a career page to meet the need sooner than later. Being flexible is the best solution when working with uncertainty.
Lots of talking is good
I had a design disagreement with our web designer, specifically on the research lab pages. However, the disagreement was due to a lack of resources. Lacking a developer on the team, we were presented with some technical limitation. Lots of communication was really important for us to work around the problem.