Streamlining User Experience – Homepage Cleanup
At A Glance
Objective: Simplify and streamline the CA homepage to improve user engagement and reduce cognitive load, ensuring a more intuitive navigation experience.
Role: Project Owner, UX Designer
Tools: Figma, Workfront, Sitecore, CrazyEgg
Teams: Design Team, Production Team
Outcome: Achieved a 15% increase in user engagement, reduced bounce rates by 10%, and increased key event interactions by 20%.
Timeline: June 2024
CA homepage before and after heatmap comparison.
Identifying the Problem
The homepage of CA was cluttered with disconnected messages and multiple competing calls to action, which caused user confusion and a high bounce rate. The page did not effectively guide visitors through the company's story, resulting in a poor user experience. Additionally, the design became more complex due to the need for personalized information in different states. The challenge also meant designing a site that addresses the various users and personalization while creating a consistent homepage experience for the company.
Tackling the Problem
I was tasked with redesigning the homepage to make it more focused and user-friendly. The goal was to enhance user engagement by making the page easier to scan, reducing cognitive load, and prioritizing essential calls to action. Additionally, I needed to ensure that the design met the diverse needs of multiple state-specific content requirements.
Below is the annotated design review of the homepage, drawing attention to the elements that negatively impact the page. Some issues include creating confusion for users by including non-interactive elements, inconsistent visual design elements like color and typography, overuse of banners, and content with no purpose.
Taking Action to Solve the Problem
Visual Analysis & Data Review: Conducted a comprehensive visual analysis and reviewed interaction data using Crazy Egg and insights from the Digital Marketing Data Team. This helped identify critical issues, such as dead clicks on non-interactive elements and a lack of visual alignment.
Content Optimization: Collaborated with the content manager to remove unnecessary logo images that created dead clicks. Streamlined the content to minimize competing calls to action, allowing the most critical CTAs to stand out—reorganized visual elements to make the page easier to scan and read.
Design & Collaboration: Provided wireframes and final mockups using Figma. Led the project, coordinating with the production and design teams to create new images for the "Teacher of the Week" initiative, which had a new format due to the page redesign.
Implementation: Figma was used for design iterations, and Crazy Egg was used for data analysis. The data team monitored post-launch performance to ensure continuous improvement.
View the annotated design explorations in Figma.
“In fall 2023, the stats were similarly proportioned but this year more people are clicking than scrolling. This is evidence that people are finding something they want more quickly on the homepage. They aren’t scrolling as much to find what they need. A larger % of traffic is also watching videos and submitting a form at some point in their session.”
Results and KeyTakeaways
This project underscored the importance of a user-centered design approach in simplifying complex web pages. By reducing cognitive load and prioritizing essential elements, we significantly improved user engagement and satisfaction. Effective collaboration across teams was crucial in ensuring the redesign's success. The following key data points gathered from CrazyEgg demonstrate the project's success.
Reduced page load by almost 30 seconds
Reduced rage clicks from 26% (poor) to 12% (average)
Increased active clicks from 5,311 to 13,638
Reduced page bounce from 63% (poor) to 49% (average)