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Forward Landing Page Build

Want to see the results before reading?

 

Black and Latino businesses  in the United States have historically faced challenges securing necessary funding. This puts them at a higher risk of failure, and a post-COVID world hasn't made things easier.

 

Square, in collaboration with various industry partners and sponsors, aimed to counter this issue by offering a mentorship program to enable these businesses to learn from successful entrepreneurs and expand their operations. A key part of making this program successful would be developing an engaging landing page to provide necessary information about qualification criteria, mentor profiles, and the application process.

The text "Forward: An accelerator for black and latino entrepreneurs by Square" is shown on a background of several small business owner profile images.
A close-up of someone holding the Square Terminal

How might we educate Black and Latino business owners about this new program in a way that’s accessible and engaging?

A series of Square products on marble tables with plants against a light blue wall

Who are we designing for?

  • Black and Latino small business owners based in the US

  • Existing Square customers and new prospects

The Team

Me! (Production Designer)

Front End Developer

Designer and Art Director

Project Manager
 

Content Producer

Copywriter

My Responsibilities

As a production designer, my role was to:

01.

Act as a consultant for the creative team during the design process to build the best web experience.

02.

Partner with our front end developer to build pages in Contentful, along with adding custom style sheets and overrides.

03.

Edit, crop and export images for web use.

Scope & Constraints

  • This project was completed across multiple time-zones, with team members based in Toronto, New York City, Rhode Island and San Francisco.
     

  • There were multiple external partners and sponsors involved in this cause. Our work need to be approved by them as well as Square leadership.

The Process

The Design Stage

During the design stage, I acted as a consultant for the designer and art director as they built Figma layouts and wireframes. I conducted research to identify user-friendly display methods and checked in with the development team and Contentful to ensure the feasibility of all layout requests.

The Page Flow Stage

In this stage, I created a "shell" of all pages in Contentful with placeholder components. I briefed the development team on the final Figma layouts, and we used sticky notes to divide up work accordingly.

The Content Stage

Once copy was finalized, I added it to all page components and sourced, cropped and exported responsive imagery to add to the web-pages. In the background, the development team added custom code and style sheets necessary to match the creative team's designs.

The Q.A. Stage

Once ready, the page was sent to stakeholders and partners for final reviews. We used a spreadsheet to manage feedback and determine which edits were gating to launch.

Launch!

Reflections

What I learned from this project

  • The more customized a page is, the more crucial it is to maintain clear and constant communication with the development team.

  • While Lottie animations are great for certain effects, they do have limitations, particularly when it comes to interactivity.

  • Sometimes a 10-minute call can resolve issues far more efficiently than hours of back-and-forth Slack messages.

What I would do differently

  • Use Slack huddles in place of asynchronous messages more often. Adding nuances like tone of voice to a conversation can make sure nothing gets lost in translation. 

  • Be more open about what I don't know than what I do know.

  • Do small QA sessions early and often instead of one big session at the end.

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