CLIENT OVERVIEW

Midtronics is a worldwide leader and provider of vehicle battery testing and management products and services.  Leading vehicle manufacturers, service centers and battery retailers around the world trust Midtronics’ testing and charging equipment, productivity-enhancing electrical diagnostic tools, diagnostic charging systems and information management.

OBJECTIVE

Midtronics' visual identity was just budding and needed a partner to help elevate and further define, as well as apply it to a wide range of projects—from the development and design of brochure templates, to interactive education tools and tradeshow graphics, to proof-of-concept presentations, development and realization of those concepts.

SOLUTION & RESULT

Product brochure templates were designed to showcase product features and benefits while providing specification information within a clean page layout and approachable chart architecture.

Trade show banner displays were created to promote Midtronics’ battery diagnostic products and partnerships with Advance Auto Parts and NASCAR. An educational tool was developed with animated illustrations to identify critical quality checkpoints in a battery's life cycle.

Rolling out a new product offering—an exclusive customer portal was designed and developed to provide customized, elegant, web-based reports from tester and charger data—providing an intuitive user interface that eliminated the need for analysis of raw spreadsheets.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Art Direction, Copy Writing Direction and Editing, UI/UX, Design, Production, Project Management, Client Service

BROCHURE TEMPLATE

The four-page, full-color brochure template was designed to align their extensive product portfolio with a consistent brand presentation. Including custom product and concept-driven photography, features and benefits with large amounts of part number details were included to effectively provide a breadth of specific information.

CO-BRAND PARTNERSHIP GRAPHICS

Banner graphics promoting their battery diagnostic products and partnerships with Advance Auto Parts and NASCAR aligned with existing material direction.

BATTERY LIFE EDUCATION

To help educate service center team members, Midtronics needed to create a quick and effective, interactive tool. The final animated presentation clarified processes such as quality check points, identified appropriate times and products to perform SOC tests, test indicators, and defined appropriate actions to take for various test readings and battery life scenarios.

MRFID-BMIS OFFERING

Midtronics was recently recognized as Chicago’s most innovative company—awarded for its highest-rated portfolio of patents granted, based on key criteria including uniqueness of the idea and likelihood for product development.

Identifying an industry need for a comprehensive battery information system that would enable customers to solve complex management challenges, Midtronics sought to create and manage a new two-fold offering:

1) Develop and utilize new RFID product technology
2) Integrate with analyzers and a customizable web-based reporting service

Two phases of were required to bring the offering to fruition.

PHASE 1: PROOF-OF-CONCEPT
To generate interest, test market demand and identify prospective customers, an interactive proof-of-concept demo presentation was created. Designed to be self-directed or sales team guided, the demo was unveiled at the Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo—an ideal focus group for receiving feedback on content, graphics and functionality.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Section—provided an overview and value proposition for Midtronic’s new RFID module. Supporting a comprehensive data reporting and management program, Midtronics RFID Reader/Writer would enable the capture and storage of test data at every service event throughout a component’s life cycle.  

Battery Management Information System (BMIS) Section—presented a look under the hood of the data base system and reporting interface, audiences reviewed product and benefits linked to sample reports, technical specs, life cycle and network diagrams.

Portal Simulation—the proof-of-concept BMIS website demonstrated the types of dynamically driven database capabilities and sample reports available via customer log-ins.

PHASE 2: BMIS REPORTING WEBSITE
The new customer portal provided a centralized collection of battery and electrical testing data from multiple sources, test data analysis, web-based reports for review, and automatic software updates for test equipment in the field.

The fully customizable, web-based data analysis and reporting service was designed to generate complete historical service data for batteries, starters and alternators, and make customers' equipment, staff, and processes more profitable and effective.

Process—providing UI, UX, front-end design and consultation, the development of the dynamic BMIS reporting website included a login page and over 20 reporting pages for multiple audiences with varied permission levels for accessing information.

Discovery of needs in relation to expectations and programming capabilities included a review of client provided direction, thought investment, Q&A through client communication and meetings/conferences.

Flow charts, content delivery outlines and visual mapping of information architecture, interactivity and functionality were presented and approved prior to design.

Design Concepts—understanding the needs of variable permission levels, as well as reporting, interface and user experience parameters, several design options were explored for each report, such as the Test Results pie chart.

Resulting Interface—unique to each report and permission level, the user interface included a retractable drop-down filtering system and customized list menu functionality that modified data query results.

Involvement included recommendation of 3rd Party modules/plugin options to address functionality requirements consistent with design considerations.

Final Report Designs—comprised of interactive, variable/building line graphs, bar and pie charts, tables and maps with embedded product detail.