Website Redesign
Led website redesign for the Workiva community website to improve usability, engagement, membership, and overall user experience based on feedback and UX best practices. The updated design aimed to simplify navigation, enhance content discoverability, and better support community engagement across key features and pages.
Challenge:
After noticing a lack of engagement on the community website, the team deployed a member experience survey. I analyzed this survey and identified key metrics to explain this lack of engagement. Results showed that members weren’t aware of the website and its features.
Starting Point
After a 2020 website migration, membership continued to grow, but user engagement declined. The website design (seen in image 1) created usability challenges that obstructed feature navigation and became a barrier to meaningful member interaction.
Member Experience Survey
The team deployed a survey to 140 participants. I analyzed this survey and identified key metrics to each website feature.
The results of the survey pointed that most users rarely used the website features. To pinpoint the painpoints, I conducted 10 UX interviews with key members of the community. This included three personas, with two new users, four occasional users, and three power users.
Usability Testing
Survey results revealed that most users rarely engaged with the website's features. To better understand the underlying pain points, I conducted 10 in-depth UX interviews with key community members. The participants represented three core personas: two new users, four occasional users, and three power users. These personas helped uncover a range of user needs and behaviors across different levels of engagement.
Interview Analysis
A key insight from the research was that even features rated high in value and usability suffered from low engagement. All 10 interviewees reported limited opportunities to engage with these tools.
For example, 7 out of 10 users were unaware of the “Threads” feature, largely due to inconsistent labeling, as the site used “Threads” and “Discussions” interchangeably. Additionally, users hesitated to post unless others were already active, revealing a social barrier to participation.
Several participants suggested that an anonymous posting option would make them feel more comfortable contributing. Based on these findings, we recommended standardizing terminology, surfacing Threads more clearly in the navigation, and enabling anonymous posting to lower barriers to engagement.
Reccomendations
My recommendations focused on improving the member experience across two key phases. In Phase 1, we addressed onboarding by redesigning the homepage and top-level navigation, updating the ProGroups “About Us” page, and improving the login and sign-up process to be more intuitive.
Phase 2 focused on enhancing ongoing engagement through improved search and tagging systems, a more personalized logged-in homepage with quick links, and better communication around feature updates.
​Additional changes include adding high-value content like the blog, Threads, and library to the main navigation, introducing anonymous discussion options, and standardizing naming conventions across the platform. Many of these updates are already underway, which reinforces the alignment between our research findings and current priorities.
​
Improving the Onboarding Experience
Homepage (Logged Out View)
-
Added a welcome banner with tailored content for members and non-members
-
Introduced an upcoming events section to highlight community activity
-
Included quick links in the sidebar for easy navigation
Top-Level Menu
-
Updated the navigation for logged-out users to improve clarity
-
Reassessed and refined gated vs. ungated content for better access
About Pages
-
Created a dedicated “About ProGroups” page
-
Refreshed existing content on the ESG, SEC, and SOX pages to align with current initiatives
Login & Registration
-
Added clear, concise copy explaining member benefits and sign-up instructions
-
Renamed the “Register” button to “Become a Member” for better alignment with user expectations
-
Created a separate, more prominent button for membership registration
​
Current Website with Changes
35% increase in membership
​
50% increase in website traffic
​
80% increase in user satisfaction
