Bearing Executive Network
Bearing Partnership the London based, digital recruitment specialists provide an Executive Network to their clients
Information Architecture & User Experience Design & User Interface Design & Interaction Design & xHTML coding & CSS3
I worked on the Bearing Executive network while working on behalf of Roxxor as one of their User Experience specialists
Bearing Partnership hired Roxxor to redesign their public website and to develop their Executive Network.
An exclusive network for people in the digital industry
The concept for the Bearing Executive network was to offer the people that Bearing Partnership place into roles in the digital industry a “by invitation only” online network where they can find out about and be kept up to date with the latest jobs and positions in the digital space.
Audience, then content, then design
As with their website (which I worked on first) we started the design process for the network by understanding who the audience for the application were and why they would become a member of and then use the Executive Network. This understanding drove the content and functionality requirements for the application, which in tern allowed me to develop the Information Architecture.
The same but different
Once the Information Architecture and content and feature lists had been worked out, the layout and look and feel design could start. Bearing wanted the Executive Network to have a look and feel inspired by, but different from, their website. It needed to be obviously part of the same brand, but needed to look different to the public site to highlight that the site and the network are different things. To achieve this I used the same general layout, proportions and spacing as on the website, as well as the same overall global navigation structure, but used a darker colour palate for the network pages and a secondary navigation that was network specific.
The network was designed to deliver a more streamlined information flow and quick, filterable access to the latest jobs news and information within the industry, customised for each member.
Designed, mocked up and delivered to development
For this project I designed and mocked up a reusable template in static HTML (and CSS) which the Roxxor developers were able to use as a UI pattern library for developing the various screens through the network on top of their bespoke content management system.