Project: Lead Design Team for redesign of Bank of America website, Intranet and Extranet Position: Creative Director (Full time, In-house consultant) Year: 2002 Accomplishments: See below Project Summary: See below
"Andrew - from your first day to your last hours, you've been a tremendous
asset to the Team and to the Bank. Thank you and enjoy your next adventure."
— Jamie Armistead, Senior Vice President, eCUE Team
"We will really miss you Andrew! I can't believe how much you and your team
have accomplished in the time you've been with us ... thanks for all your
hard work, dedication and great ideas - they've been invaluable ..."
— Susan Fore, Lead Usability
"Man, am I gonna miss you! So creative, so energetic, so positive...keep in touch."
— Andy Lester, Lead, Unauthenticated Environment
"Thank you for everything you did while you were here. I think you
single-handedly took 5 years off our growing pains in terms of adding nice
mature processes to the mix."
— Matt Vande Voorde, Technology and Usability Lead
Andrew Gold consulted with Bank of America as eCommerce Creative Director in their e-Commerce User Experience (eCUE) Group in San Francisco from June through November 2002. Andrew Gold led the Design Team as a full-time, in-house consultant.
Jamie Armistead, the Senior Vice President of the eCUE Team, brought AKGold in to help him and the eCUE Team with a number of critical projects that impacted the entire Bank of America organization. Jamie Armistead and Andrew Gold had worked together at AllBusiness.com and he knew from personal experience of my ability to get the job done and done well.
Bank of America was redesigning and refocusing its entire bankofamerica.com web space used by tens of millions of customers and prospective customers as well as Online Banking with Free Bill Pay which at that time had over 5 million users and was rapidly growing. In addition, Bank of America was redesigning and refocusing the Associate Portal to be used by Bank of America's 130,000 plus employees.
Due to the intensity and size of the projects, Jamie Armistead knew that he required someone who had the experience, reliability, talent and the team skills to ensure that the Design Team not only handled the projects well, but could deliver solidly. Andrew Gold was able to successfully complete all of the projects assigned to him and in many cases exceed all expectations. Andrew was grateful to Bank of America for offering him a full-time position, which he declined due to his life's goals of studying a year of Torah in Israel.
I came in the middle of the redesign project of bankofamerica.com and Online Banking with Free Bill Pay. Several facets of the initial design were complete, but many details remained unbaked and hence the intense experience of getting up
to speed on the organization, the team, the internal clients, and the goals and timelines. From increasing enrollment, to facilitating the user process and to
communicating new products and features, my job was to make sure that the design supported the core goals of the second largest bank in America.
Rebuilding the Team
The Design Team was falling behind and slowing up the entire eCUE Team. I quickly saw the pressure points and brought in talent that helped ease the work load
and improve team morale. I also initiated Monday morning meetings where the team
reviewed standards and each member walked through his or her design projects. Soon our team was impressing everyone with our work ethic, delivery and clear
design solutions. It was a real pleasure working with the extremely talented team consisting of Darren Su, Michael Smith, Tim Holl, Reyson Morales, Lou Zadesky
and Jovita Lai.
Clarifying and Improving the Process
I implemented online Project Pages within a sophisticated Intranet that clarified the design goal, the team, the client, the deliverables, the timeline, and the design feedback. I worked closely with Jamie Armistead, the SVP of eCUE, Andrew Lester, the Manager of the Interactive Designers, Rufus Jeffris, the Manager of Content, Darren Su, the Creative Director, and Tien Ta, the Project Manager to streamline our processes.
Working within the Organization
I embraced working within the organization and our designs received formal approval by Brand, Legal, Promotions, Usability and User Testing which was headed up by Susan Fore, and Accessibility. There are over 35 Lines of Business which were our internal clients, as well as Project Managers, Promotions, and 3rd Party clients such as CheckFree. My
experience of working positively and cooperatively with teams helped
the eCUE Design Team take a position of leadership in responsively working within the organization.
Completing the Major Projects
The initial projects were: completion of the bankofamerica.com design and online style guide; creation of the Online Banking online style guide; redesign of
Credit Cards, Deposits and Investments; and the design of the Associate Portal
and its online style guide. I worked closely with Graham Jenkin, Lead Architect of Authenticated Environment, on a host of projects involving Technology and
3rd party vendors. There were over 20 other small and not so small projects which my team successfully completed.
Doing It with Style
In order to clearly communicate design standards to Technology for grid, color and font styles and classes, and to provide a repository for design elements and icons, the design team created comprehensive online style guides for bankofamerica.com, Online Banking, and the Associate Portal. Darren Su, the Creative Director, created the initial framework. I made sure that all new design elements
were posted to the style guides and that the team members were on the same design page.
Preparing for New Brand Guidelines
Bank of America was preparing to launch an entire brand overhaul, the current
Higher Standards. Our designs needed to provide the structure which would eventually change to meet the new Brand guidelines. The featured examples show how the Bank of America site appeared in the end of 2002 through the middle of 2003.
At the end of my consulting agreement, I was pleasantly surprised when the eCUE Team had a cake for him and a little going away party
during the weekly team meeting. Andrew had the honor of working with a really
talented group. Jamie Armistead told Andrew that he had exceeded his expectations
in almost every way. (And, perhaps most touching to me, the Design Team wrote me a beautiful Thank You card, individually signed.)
