Ferritiva Brand Research & Design

May 2022-December 2022

Project Overview

Ferritiva is an innovative, venture-backed startup developing an accessible, non-invasive iron deficiency screening tool. Ferritiva's mission is for people to lead healthy, holistic lives supported by healthcare products.

The goal of this project was to develop a branding design for the company and to create communicative pitching material.

My Role

UX Researcher
User Research, Design Research, Branding and Visual Design, Customer Discovery, Marketing

Neurodivergence, encompassing conditions like ADHD and autism, affects over 8.7 million adults in the US. Due to the pandemic, there has been a rapid shift to remote work which is now embraced by over 33% of the workforce. In this shift, Slack has become a widely used workplace platform; however, our initial research indicates Slack does not address the diverse needs and challenges of neurodivergent individuals, preventing a supportive and productive environment for all users.

Key Research Impact:

46 customer discovery interviews directly shaped target demographic and brand positioning
3 user personas created to guide future research and product development
Complete brand system delivered and implemented across company materials and product
Brand guidelines established covering logo, color strategy, and marketing applications
Investor presentation materials created for Demo Day and company growth initiatives

Background

Ferritiva was unanimously accepted to the University of Illinois' iVenture Accelerator, an educational accelerator program for top student startups at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

As the founding UX Researcher at Ferritiva, I established the user research practice and developed visual brand identity. This was my first professional transition into UX Research.
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I had the incredible opportunity to conduct foundational customer discovery research that shaped product strategy and market positioning, while also applying research insights to create the company's visual identity and marketing materials

Working as Ferritiva's sole researcher within the iVenture program allowed me to build my foundation in UX research methodology while collaborating with accelerator mentors and industry professionals to gain hands-on experience in UX and an early-stage startup.

Customer Discovery

At the time I joined Ferritiva, the startup was finalizing its target user demographic and researching the possible applications of its product. I collaborated with my teammate on the the customer discovery process and took the lead in synthesizing key themes to understand the user I was designing for.

Research Approach:

Conducted 46+ structured customer discovery interviews
Developed interview protocols targeting key demographic groups
Used iterative approach to refine research questions based on emerging themes

We iteratively determined the customer demographic as people who experienced or interacted with iron deficiency through their occupation, athletics, blood donation, pregnancy, lifestyle, or during their adolescence. As Ferritiva was created initially to help athletes who experience iron deficiency, the major user groups we interviewed were athletes and professionals in the medical field who treat iron deficiency and anemia.

Research Synthesis & User Personas

During the customer discovery process, I created three user personas to further understand users' needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals. I chose to develop personas for three target demographic groups: pregnant individuals, adolescents, and athletes as individuals from these demographics most commonly experience iron deficiency. This process allowed me to view iron-level testing from the perspective of our potential customers and synthesize complex qualitative data into actionable user profiles.

Key Research Insights

Through the customer discovery process, I gained an understanding of users' emotions and experiences surrounding iron deficiency, identifying critical patterns that informed our product and business strategy:

Testing Anxiety Varies by User Context: Research revealed that iron deficiency testing anxiety was highest among pregnant individuals due to health implications for both mother and baby, while athletes showed strong preference for non-invasive testing methods that wouldn't disrupt training schedules.
Accessibility Barriers in Current Testing: Participants desired more frequent iron level monitoring but were deterred by invasive blood draw procedures. Traditional testing methods created significant barriers for regular monitoring, especially among younger demographics.
Market Opportunity Beyond Athletes: Customer discovery insights revealed our initial athlete-focused positioning was too narrow. Research indicated that there was a broader market opportunity across multiple demographics experiencing iron deficiency, informing our expanded target market strategy.

Research Impact on Product Strategy

Our user and market research directly influenced key business decisions:

Market Positioning Shift: Customer discovery insights shifted our target market from athletes-only to a broader demographic including pregnant individuals, adolescents, and medical professionals, expanding our addressable market significantly.
Messaging Strategy: User feedback informed our messaging strategy, leading us to emphasize "energy and vitality" over clinical terminology. Research showed that communicating energy through our branding was crucial to resonating with target users.
Product Direction: Personas and user needs analysis guided early product discussions around device interface design and result communication methods, ensuring user-centered development from the start.

Translating Research to Design

Through the customer discovery process, I gained an understanding of users’ emotions and experiences surrounding iron deficiency. Further, I utilized the data to surmise the messaging they sought to receive from a product. Our mission at Ferritiva is to empower individuals by providing accessible healthcare. Throughout these interviews and field research, I understood that treating iron deficiency can lead to improved energy levels, stamina, and improved health. Therefore, above all else, I wanted to communicate energy and vitality in my design.

Design Research

Color Palette:
‍Through healthcare design research, I discovered the prevalence of the color blue in products and marketing. When regarding major industry providers, blue appears in over 85% of healthcare logos as it portrays knowledge, security, and trust.

Ferritiva’s mission revolves around helping individuals experience a healthy lifestyle with renewed vigor and stamina. As I considered communicating energy through the logo and branding to be crucial, I sought to center the brand color palette around this messaging. I conducted research through a literature review in healthcare design branding principles and color psychology. Through this process, I discovered the color orange is proven to communicate messages of energy and enthusiasm in branding.

From this, I decided to center the design around blue and orange and supplement the remaining colors accordingly. Using blue and orange as a basis, I chose shades of yellow and green to be complimenting colors.

Design Ideation

As Ferritiva is a growing startup, my goal was to have the logo encompass the company’s vision to bring identity to the brand. I began by using the name Ferritiva as inspiration for the design. Ferritiva’s name was derived as a play on ferritin and saliva as ferritin is a common biomarker for evaluating iron storage in the body and saliva is the sample matrix used by the company.

I began brainstorming by drawing visual inspiration from looking at polypeptide chains that make up a protein. Ferritin, the iron storage biomolecule that Ferritiva looks for to measure iron levels in the body, is a protein that has this structure. I sought to use the hexagonal shapes from certain amino acids to link the design with iron. I brainstormed having the hexagonal structure surrounding the ‘Fe’ in Ferritiva as iron’s atomic symbol is Fe.

The image below depicts the original sketching I did while brainstorming the logo using a ferritin structure:

Through design iteration and collaboration with the iVenture design team, I developed a logo using Procreate and Adobe Illustrator that utilized data from my healthcare design research with visual similarity to a ferritin structure. This logo was designed not only to communicate the company’s mission of energy and health, but also provide a sort of easter egg to potential investors from a medical background.

Brand Design

After designing Ferritiva’s logo, I then created the company’s branding centered around the logo. I developed a brand book for the company’s use in marketing and product design. This brand book encapsulates the following branding I developed including various components such as the logo, logo mark, color palette, and iconography.
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The branding I developed is used throughout Ferritiva’s online presence and marketing in addition to the physical iron-level screening device. Here the logo mark I developed is used on the prototype of the tool:
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Marketing

As I learned through working with a startup, it is important to be flexible and wear different hats. Beyond user research, my role expanded to include marketing strategy for Ferritiva during iVenture Accelerator's annual Demo Day, a major networking event and showcase.

Research-Informed Marketing Strategy: I translated user research insights into compelling marketing materials, creating a presentation for our team to pitch Ferritiva at Demo Day to bring awareness to the startup as well as network with potential investors. The presentation emphasized user-centered messaging around energy and accessibility rather than purely technical specifications, directly reflecting what resonated with our target users during interviews.

Here are a few of the slides I developed that are used for Ferritiva’s marketing and Demo Day pitch:
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Key Takeaways

Working with Ferritiva was my first time delving into the industry side of HCI and UX. It was an enriching experience filled with learning and growth. Here are some of the key concepts I learned that I will carry with me to my future endeavors:

Focus on the task at hand: Throughout this summer I had various tasks to juggle along with developing Ferritiva’s research foundation. Trying to do too many tasks at once led to less progress and disorganization in my work. Instead, I learned how to prioritize the task at hand to commit my full effort and rotate focus when needed.
Iteration is part of the process: Creating designs from scratch with minimal guidelines lead to continuous iteration through brainstorming and possible directions. This process led to some exhaustion but I learned how this iteration is part of the design process. By progressing through various designs and details, I was able to grow as a designer and finalize a design that was an optimized product of previous iterations.
Don't be afraid to ask for help: While I was the only researcher at Ferritiva, I was a part of a larger cohort of iVenture Accelerator. Throughout the summer, I learned how to lean on others when needed in order to learn and grow from collaboration. Both receiving and providing advice to other UX-ers in my cohort allowed me to become a better in my craft and learn more about the UX field.