M&A

Problem

How do you acquire new products, bring them and their customers into your organization’s ecosystem of products, services, operations, and design and brand systems?

We needed to quickly respond as each new acquisition happened to support the business’s growth and ensure the consistency, usability, and high quality standards the organization has historically represented.

History

From 2017-2019, Formstack purchased 5 companies through acquisitions. I was responsible for bringing 3 of these applications into the Formstack customer journey, working to align each with Formstack’s brand, unifying the user experience and user interfaces to create consistency, and the creation of a navigation pattern that could persist across all applications and support users as they moved across the Formstack suite of web-based products.

Objectives

Rebrand each application and apply Formstack UI/UX guidelines

One of the key objectives was to rebrand each acquired application to align with Formstack’s established UI/UX guidelines. This involved carefully assessing the existing design elements, typography, color palette, and other visual components of each application. By applying Formstack’s design principles, I ensured a consistent and cohesive user experience across the suite of products.

Create navigation that supports users moving from application to application

A crucial aspect of integrating the acquired applications was the creation of a navigation system that facilitated smooth user transitions from one application to another. By designing and implementing a navigation pattern that was intuitive and familiar to users, I enhanced their ability to navigate seamlessly between the different products within the Formstack ecosystem.

Improve the connection moments to make it easier to adopt more capabilities

In order to promote the adoption of additional capabilities and features, it was essential to improve the connection moments between the various applications. This involved identifying key touchpoints and optimizing the user experience to make it easier for users to explore and leverage the full range of Formstack’s offerings. By streamlining these connection moments, I aimed to enhance user engagement and facilitate the adoption of more capabilities.

Outcomes

By successfully accomplishing these objectives, I contributed to the overall integration of the acquired applications into the Formstack ecosystem, fostering a cohesive and consistent user experience across the suite of products. The rebranding efforts, seamless navigation, and improved connection moments all played a significant role in enabling Formstack to leverage the strengths of the acquired companies and provide a unified and comprehensive solution to its customers. For the initial phase of the rebrand and application of our design system standards across the products, I was responsible for the design alongside my amazing team. This was one of the biggest challenges I have faced so far in my career and I was fortunate to have had a wonderful team that made us successful.

Team

• Kayce Reed-Buechlein, Director of Product Design
• Jared Allen, Product Manager, Formstack Sign
• Dasha Gordeeva, Senior Product Designer, Formstack Forms and Sign
• Jason Walkow, Product Designer, Formstack Forms
• Chloe Seo, Product Designer, Formstack Documents
• Credit to Matt Ritter for all rebranded Formstack logos
• Front-End Engineering, especially Ryanne Graff, Amanda Schuff, Shital Giri, Jerrod Mathis, Ryan Lile, and more.