About
Bringing clarity to UK Business forums
UK Business Forums (UKBF) is the UK’s largest and most active forum for startup and micro businesses. On UKBF users can get support on validating their business ideas, client relationships and financial advice.
Client
UK Business Forums
Responsibilities
Branding
Web design
Marketing Design
Logo design
The logo reflects the straight-talking nature of UKBF and the variations allows for highly flexible usage. Allowing it to live in smaller spaces and still be recognisable. Something that the previous logo struggled with. As a speech-bubble it’s also a handy visual device that speaks to the core of UKBF’s function
Messaging
The messaging was designed to speak to the entirety of the small business spectrum, and so needed to as flexible as the logo.
Before and after, forum page
Before and after, language use
Website design
The forums themselves received some much needed TLC. The new pared back colour palette helped with legibility and reduced visual overload. By applying a more considered approach to our layouts and language, we made the forums easier to interact with.
Process
The challenge
Mounting competition, frustrated users and a changing financial model had lead UKBF to decide it was time to make a change. My task was to make the users happy again, improve the UI, and along with it make the brand stand out better in people’s minds.
Brand design relied heavily on persona research
Early brand concept, utilising a down to earth tone
Old logo (Left), confusingly similar to a competitors logo (Right)
Audience research
Through a UKBF audience outreach programme we discovered that a majority of its users were in an earlier sink-or-swim phase of their business than we had thought. With this insight I established a down-to-earth tone upon which everything else was built.
Results
Improved user journeys throughout the site, and in particular around login and signups. This includes a premium paid for subscription, which also saw a sharp increase after the redesign.
UKBF has also become a brand that can grow, and can now effectively market events and meetups, and interact with the world around it.
But most importantly is what the everyday forum users gain from this. For every improvement we make to this site we help someones livelihood, helping them find support at a very critical stage in their business.