Rebranding & Enhancing UX for Climate Change

 Enviva is the global leader in sustainable wood bioenergy, committed to displacing coal, promoting reforestation, and combating climate change. As part of their mission to drive the global transition to clean energy, Enviva’s online presence needed a modern, user-centric website to reflect their core values and to better serve their audiences. The previous website was outdated, difficult to navigate, and didn’t effectively communicate their sustainability goals or their impact on the environment. Our team was tasked with redesigning the website to better align with Enviva’s mission and enhance the user experience for a variety of stakeholders.

Original Design:

The Challenge

The primary challenge was to revamp Enviva’s website so it could more effectively serve its multiple audiences, including potential investors, partners, and the general public. The site needed to:

• Reflect Enviva’s sustainability mission in a visually appealing and informative way.
• Improve content structure and usability for better user experience.
• Create a streamlined and engaging homepage.
• Make important information, such as sustainability reports and research documents, easy to find and access.
• Implement a mobile-first design, ensuring optimal user experience across all devices.

How might we redesign Enviva’s website to effectively communicate its sustainability mission, provide easy access to resources, and enhance the user experience for stakeholders across all devices?

Research & Discovery

The first step in the redesign process was understanding the needs of Enviva’s stakeholders and defining the key business objectives for the website. This process included:

Stakeholder Interviews: I flew to Bethesda, MD, where I facilitated workshops and conducted one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders within Enviva. These conversations focused on understanding their vision for the website, their goals, and what was working and not working with the existing site.

Affinity Mapping: During the ideation phase, we used an affinity mapping exercise to organize stakeholder insights into thematic clusters. This helped us uncover common needs, such as the need for a more robust homepage, a centralized repository for documents, and a dedicated page for Enviva’s sustainability efforts.

Competitor Analysis: We also performed a competitive analysis, reviewing similar energy and sustainability-focused organizations to understand industry trends and user expectations.

User Research: Through a combination of surveys and user testing, we gained insights into the challenges users faced on the existing site. We found that many users struggled with finding specific information quickly, particularly in regard to sustainability reports and research documents.

Key Insights

1. Sustainability Was Central: Enviva’s sustainability mission needed to be more prominent and effectively communicated throughout the website.
2. Information Architecture Was Confusing: The existing information architecture (IA) had a lot of duplicate content and redundant pages that made navigation challenging.
3. Need for a Document Repository: Stakeholders expressed a strong need for a centralized, easy-to-navigate repository for important documents, including sustainability reports, regulatory filings, and research publications.
4. Mobile Usability Was a Priority: Users increasingly accessed the site via mobile devices, but the existing design wasn’t optimized for smaller screens.

Solution

We took a holistic approach to the redesign, with a focus on modern aesthetics, streamlined navigation, and clear messaging around Enviva’s sustainability efforts. Our solution involved the following key elements:

Information Architecture & Content Strategy:

• Site Mapping & Card Sorting: Using findings from stakeholder interviews, we conducted site-mapping and card-sorting exercises. These activities helped us identify duplicate pages and restructure content into more intuitive categories.
• Clear Navigation: We simplified the website’s navigation to make it easier for users to find critical information. Key pages were restructured into logical, clearly labeled categories such as “About Us,” “Sustainability,” “Reports,” and “News.”

Homepage Design:

• The new homepage serves as both an introduction to Enviva’s mission and a gateway to deeper content. A visually engaging hero section highlights their commitment to sustainability, with direct links to key content, such as their impact on the environment and recent sustainability reports.
• We included a dynamic section showcasing the company’s latest initiatives, news, and press releases, helping to keep the homepage fresh and relevant.

Sustainability Page:

• The redesigned Sustainability page became the cornerstone for conveying Enviva’s mission. This page outlines their work in displacing coal, growing more trees, and reducing carbon emissions. We used a combination of infographics, videos, and interactive elements to tell the story of Enviva’s impact on the environment in a way that’s engaging and easy to understand.

Document Repository:

• A dedicated document repository was created to allow users to easily access a variety of important resources. We implemented a powerful search feature to help users filter documents based on type, date, or topic. This feature was especially important for stakeholders looking for specific reports or regulatory documents.

Mobile-First Design:

• Given that a significant portion of Enviva’s audience accesses the site on mobile devices, we adopted a mobile-first design approach. The design was optimized for small screens, with touch-friendly navigation, simplified layouts, and easy-to-access calls-to-action.

Prototyping & Testing

After finalizing the wireframes, we developed rapid prototypes that allowed us to experiment with various user flows and test the design concepts. We ran usability tests with both internal stakeholders and real users to gather feedback and refine the user experience.

• Usability Testing: In our iterative testing sessions, users were asked to complete specific tasks, such as finding the latest sustainability report or navigating to the company’s mission statement. We identified pain points, such as difficulty in accessing detailed reports, which led us to further simplify the navigation and optimize search features.
• Feedback Loops: Frequent feedback sessions with Enviva’s stakeholders ensured that the design remained aligned with their vision and business objectives.

Final Deliverables

• A Modernized, User-Friendly Website: The new website launched with a clean, modern design that communicates Enviva’s commitment to sustainability and clean energy. It’s easy to navigate, informative, and visually appealing.
• Enhanced Document Access: The document repository became a key feature of the website, providing stakeholders with streamlined access to Enviva’s reports, research papers, and other critical resources.
• Mobile Optimization: The mobile-first design ensures that users have a smooth and enjoyable experience across all devices, from desktop to smartphone.

BACK TO WORK