Credit Union Advantage Website Design

www.cuadvantage.coop

Credit Union Advantage is based in Southfield, MI in a suburb near Detroit however, their membership is all over Michigan. They have been in business since 1969 and they wanted to be a source of information 24/7 for their members.

The Challenge

Because, CU Advantage is housed inside of a hospital that brought a few different kinds of problems that needed to be addressed with the new site design. Some of these problems consisted of: 

• They were looking for members who wanted to barrow money

• There was no style guide to work with other then the green and blue from their logo

• It was very important that the website did not look like it was located in a hospital

• This needed to have more of a modern UI, without going too modern

The Solution

As the lead designer on this website design and other site designs, I’ve worked on at Kasasa - I did a fair amount of research on who this bank was and what pain points they had. Not only did I look at the sitemap to see what was most important to them, I also looked at how they described themselves and this is what they said:

• Safe

• Secure 

• Convenient 

• Trusted

The New Design

Before I started the design, I took a lot of different things into consideration like: the sitemap, conversation notes with the client, their pain points and also my own research. I always start with quick very lo-fi wireframes and usually do at least a few of them to help flush out my ideas through drawing them out and making little notes. I also, think it’s very important to think in UX principles when designing a website because you want the site to work as intended and think of the UI as well, because they need to work in harmony. All of these things helped to solve the CU Advantage’s problems.  Some of the things I did were:

• I added patterns in different sections on the homepage – to help bring in a more modern and playful flair 

• In the sitemap they had Kasasa products high up in the list, I was able to work my copywriter to find a playful way to introduce the products

• Because they were so close to Detroit, I wanted to bring in a little bit of the “Motor City” into the site in a fun illustrative way

• I brought in a bright but not obnoxious orange to be an accent color 

Conclusion

The copywriter and I were able to really collaborate on this piece with both the copy and the images, and in turn give Credit Union Advantage something really special and fun. In the end, the customer was very happy with their updated website and that we listened to them about what they really needed help with, as well as, being able to tell their story in the new design.

Copy on website: Victoria Kerr   
Front End Developer: Ashley Sherwood