For ClimateTech

Web Design & Development
learn.forclimatetech.org
Project Overview
For ClimateTech is a venture development organization funded by the New York State government that manages two startup accelerator programs. They sought to build an educational website for climatetech hardware entrepreneurs. This project resulted in a first of its kind, interactive guide that walks startup companies through every major step in the hardware innovation process, from idea to production. This site now serves as a valuable companion to hardware innovators in fifteen countries across the globe in the fight against the climate crisis.
My Contributions
For this project, I worked as the lead product designer on a team consisting of a senior engineer, studio designers, project manager, and marketing team. My primary tasks included user research, ideation, developing interactive prototypes in Figma to achieve early stakeholder buy-in, developing user flows and information architecture, visual design, copywriting, user testing, designing and testing for accessibility (WCAG 2.0 AA-level compliance), and managing the CMS in WordPress.
User Profile
The target users for this website are startup company founders who have developed breakthrough clean energy prototypes and want help bringing them to production. Think of these users as the Teslas of tomorrow. I personally met dozens of climatetech founders during my time as a Program Coordinator at NextCorps, and I observed that they are incredibly intelligent but very busy individuals who often prioritize fighting the fire of the day. As a result, they need easy-to-find, ready-to-use product development guides, templates, and resources.
Design Approach
As I designed this website, I kept similar sites such as build4scale.org in mind. I aimed to improve upon the user experience of Build4Scale by guiding users through the site's resources in a logical and seamless way. I accomplished this through the development of a novel assessment tool that evaluates the stage of a startup's hardware product in less than 15 minutes. After completing the assessment, users are emailed an interactive product roadmap tool with direct links to the site's content that is most relevant to their specific needs.
Initial Homepage Prototype
FIGMA
Here is a mid-fidelity mockup of the homepage design in an early prototype that was used to achieve buy-in from stakeholders in the New York State government. The full Figma prototype is available here.
Final Homepage Design
WORDPRESS
Below is a screenshot of the website's final homepage design. I designed the homepage's layout, selected and arranged visual assets, and wrote all the copy, while staying within For ClimateTech's brand guidelines and WCAG accessibility guidelines. The full, live website is available here.