Merrill Lynch suffered from a fragmented user experience. More than 28 business units used inconsistent branding. To maintain their market dominance, they had to do something — fast. Client and market expectations gave them one chance to get it right.
MAYA translated and extended the Merrill Lynch brand for the web. Intuitive organization and navigation, and a consistent brand experience, make it much easier for their customers to do business with them.
No big Wall Street firm had more to lose from the internet, and none has made better use of it. – The Economist, 7 January 2002
User Study
MAYA understands the operating constraints of businesses. Stopping business, even slowing it down to retool with new products, is not an option. (It’s like changing a tire while driving 65 miles per hour.) We worked from multiple vantage points spanning the entire Merrill Lynch organization to make sure we left no room for error. We spoke face-to-face with customers; worked side-by-side with their own designers, developers, and executives; and devoted attention to detailed aspects of their customers’ experience with the Merrill Lynch brand.
Information Architecture
We built scenarios, explored concepts, and defined a unified identity and interaction framework. We stripped away the noise and built a powerful “mass-customized” experience. MAYA’s information architecture clarified and defined site information types and navigation methods. It guided all subsequent site development by Merrill Lynch, from major decisions about integrating business units to details about the smallest visual components.
Interface
MAYA created a Merrill Lynch gateway that transparently and quickly leads customers directly to the information they desire. We designed a cohesive online experience with the Merrill Lynch brand that also strengthens the identities of individual business units. The information architecture and design documentation produced by MAYA make it possible for Merrill Lynch to continue to design and develop their own solutions.
Results
Our web interface for Merrill Lynch made it much easier for their customers to do business with Merrill Lynch. Individual business units no longer wasted effort designing sites from scratch. Every unit embraced our new design — a remarkable feat of organizational change for a $45 billion firm.
Follow-on Work
Our clients frequently follow a targeted design project with one that is more open ended and strategic. What other products would be appropriate? What kind of company will they be in the future?
After successfully extending the Merrill Lynch brand experience to the web, MAYA defined another design language for the brand that translates well across different kinds of mobile devices, such as RIM’s Blackberry. MAYA solved the design problem at the intersection of visual design, human factors, and engineering within the constraints of human ergonomics, optics, and display limitations.
It’s a family of symbols that lowers adoption barriers and adds market advantages. Merrill Lynch owns the design language in the interface, defines the standard for competitors, and builds brand loyalty and equity through user experience — no matter where it takes place.
This mini-project was done in about a week, from getting initial input to delivering the final digital identity system.