A New Navigation
CATEGORY
FEATURE IMPROVEMENT
DURATION
5 MO
YEAR
2021 - 2023
FEATURE OVERVIEW
ROLE
TASK
RESPONSIBILITIES
Design For a Re-brand
Collaborated on evolving the navigation to fit an in-flight product rebrand
FullStory’s navigation reflects the vast feature set users can utilize to track and monitor their site’s usage.
Co-lead product designer
Co-lead design efforts in 2021 to evolve the navigation for a product re-brand, co-lead research efforts in 2023 to iterate on and test a new navigational improvement
Collaborate with head of design to iterate on current navigation, create a research plan for usability testing, recruit participants on UserTesting, conduct 10+ hours of customer interviews, and present findings to broader product team
The Process
Prioritize UX Debt
1.5 years later, worked with the design team to prioritize navigation UX debt
Customer Interviews
Conducted usability testing on the new navigation to identify usability issues
Research Share Out
Shared research findings with the broader product team
Design for a re-brandMy first project after joining FullStory was to collaborate with the head of design to iterate on the navigation for a big feature launch that would change the look and feel of our product.
Prioritize ux debtSince the feature launch in July 2021, I fought to prioritize re-visiting the navigation’s design. In May 2023, a team of 3 designers and I worked to create a case for prioritizing navigation work.
customer interviewsOne of the team’s picked up the navigation work and 2 quarters later we had a design ready for testing.
Research share outFrom Legacy to Modern
Joining FullStory during a major feature launch allowed me to fully dive into designing the future of the product from day 1. As a company, we were going from an outdated, legacy product to a more refined and modern look and with that came a need for a new navigation. After diving into some Nielsen Norman navigation best practices articles, I came to the team with a proposal to evolve the current top navigation to a side bar which would allow for more real estate as the product continues to grow. We ran with it and after multiple whiteboarding sessions, we had our final design that we wanted to build out.
Research findings were shared with the broader product team and GA launch for the new navigation is set for Q4 2023. Since the experience is still being built, I’m not able to share designs at this time.
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Career Takeaways
A lack of an established research process comes with a lack of user testing before feature launches. We were running out of time to properly de-risk the new design before launch, so we set up time with our 3 largest customer accounts to get feedback on the new navigation. With our largest accounts happy and only 4 task analysis user sessions complete, we pushed forward with the design. Although the new layout was a step in the right direction for providing a better user experience, we started receiving feedback on usability issues post-launch. This experience has taught me the importance of research and user testing within design to ensure products are truly being built for the user by the user.
Design Teardown
In Q2 2023, a team of 4 of us designers worked together to do discovery work and build a case for why the navigation should be worked on. We started by doing a design teardown where each designer chose 1 competitor and 1 non-competitor to critique their site’s navigation. We came together and discussed which elements we liked and disliked to note as we ideate on the navigation’s future state. Coming out of that session, we had a better understanding of what needed to be iterated on to improve the overall experience of navigating our product.
Identifying Opportunities
We talked through what we envisioned for the navigation and created a Thoughtful Execution Tree around the different opportunities that would have to be picked up to reach our goal. This tree was used as our primary artifact when participating in discussions for quarterly planning.
Understanding User Behaviors
I conducted 10 sessions to test the new design with both new and existing users. We used task analysis to see if users could easily complete a given task. At the conclusion of the study we gained a lot of insight to the reality of how users might interact with the navigation once released. Luckily we saw no task blocking issues, but we were able to gain a lot of context to preferences users have to navigate. This context will be beneficial when reporting numbers post-launch as to why some areas of the navigation are receiving low traffic versus others.
Reporting for Context
When I shared these findings with the team, I assigned a severity rating to each group of common behaviors I observed. This was done to reassure everyone that what we saw was not concerning, but rather helped us understand user behaviors better for future. The chart used to attached ratings can be seen below.
Looking for Task Blockers
With a new design, we wanted to ensure that proper testing was done to identify and address any potential task blocker usability issues before GA launch. Our research goals were to:
Understand if existing users can successfully navigate the new design given their existing mental model
Understand if the new concepts introduced in the design are landing with both new and existing users
Identify any necessary changes needed to be made before GA
To ensure we reached each goal, I structured the sessions with the help of the primary designer on the project to map out the prototype. We went through the components of the new navigation to make sure that each new idea had a specific task associated to it.
