Verstaan is a startup consisting of Harvard and Penn students, former military operators and researchers — who all believe that the combination of software and real-world human experience is essential for making navigation safer in this world. Verstaan’s first product is the Atlas platform, a software aimed at optimizing threat management.
Head of Design
(starting Sept 2019)
Front-end Developer
June 2019 - Present
Affinity Designer
Adobe Photoshop
Sketch
inVision
React Native
Brand Design
Marketing and Visual Design
UI Design
UX Design
Front-end Development
When I entered the startup, there was no brand identity, style guide, or product logo in place (aside from the Verstaan logo). However, as an early stage startup — especially such a young one — it is crucial to smartly establish a brand identity in order to stand out among competitors, appeal to investors, and gain trust from clients. A sophisticated company brand exudes a great sense of quality and professionalism and more importantly, the potential of the company at large.
The goal of branding any company successfully is to appeal to the entire spectrum of preferences of the target market and audience. I spoke with the founders of the company to better understand that the two key targeted audiences were private security companies (our immediate clients) and Saas investors (our funding sources).
In addition, I did some research on the branding of our competitors and other security-related software companies and found that:
After integrating the aforementioned considerations, I created a style guide, product logo, and established a brand identity that was consistently conveyed throughout our public facing website, company documents and decks, and eventually our product design. The main philosophy was to establish a firm identity that fit in the security space while maintaining the essence of a modern tech company.
With this style guide, I designed all pitch decks, company documents, and our public facing website — focusing on clean visuals and simple layouts. The guide was also consistently implemented into the product UI.
Needless to say, designing an entire product is a big project. For brevity, some details of the process were omitted to capture the big picture. For more specific information about my product design experience at Verstaan, shoot me a message!
I was tasked with designing all product user interfaces pretty much from bottom up based on the features and functions that the founders had envisioned in the product. While designing, I prioritized ways the product could best carry out its function because form follows function but I never loosened my standards for the aesthetics of the interface because good form can improve function.
Since our product integrates the roles of a multitude of physical security enterprise tools such as a map, walkie-talkie alerting, and waze-like incident reporting, the initial goal was to find a way to structure all the features into a simple user-interface that would not be too cluttered or consist of confusing user flow.
Through lots of bouncing ideas back and forth between the founders and my coworkers, and days of white-board wire framing, I designed a general user flow concept that emphasized:
Ideas for overall app architecture and specific feature designs were brought to life from initial white-board brainstorms to ipad wireframes (seen below) to eventual Sketch prototypes that were shared on inVision, where the developers were able to reference while building the MVP.
After the first prototype was built, I started revising features and revisiting loose ends that I may have left due to the rush of meeting initial deadlines. Since the startup was so early staged, I unfortunately did not have access to clients and could not conduct direct user research (which would have been ideal). Instead, I turned to the founders and internal team members, which includes an ex-military operator, who had greater insights into user needs to conduct my research.
The main issue that was repeatedly raised was the rough environmental conditions security personnel could encounter out in-field including low visibility, rain, and mud/dirt. In these conditions, the accessibility of high priority buttons such as the alert and add observation button as well as the visibility of incidents on the map would be heavily compromised.
Through multiple rounds of redesigns and feedback meetings, I improved the following:
The beauty of being in an early stage startup is the opportunity to learn different roles and wear many hats. When the team needed more development help (and when most design work was complete), I stepped in, learned React Native, and helped with mobile front-end development (thanks to my background in biomedical engineering). It has been such a joy designing and developing for the team thus far!
This project was an immense learning experience for me as I was introduced into the whimsical world of visual and product design at such a rapid pace. Especially at a startup as the first designer, I quickly realized I was going to have to learn on my own and self-teach a whole lot!
I still have a lot of room for growth in better understanding how to more efficiently and effectively carry out the design process as well as execute proper user research. Furthermore, my designs are nowhere near perfect and are still currently undergoing many more revisions and design changes. Nevertheless, I've loved every second of the process and can't wait to design more!
