Esri product page redesign & strategy
Context:
In Q1 of 2021, I was tasked to create a content and design strategy to unify product microsites on Esri.com. There are 122 products and 320 individual pages, and these numbers are growing. Many of these pages were created at different times and were governed by different page strategies.
These are two products from the same product category, yet are made with completely different components. More so, the design language used to tell each product’s story is completely different.
Empathize:
One of the key things I did when developing a strategy was review and synthesize existing interviews/ usability tests conducted by the research team and marketing team the previous fall.
When asked whether or not most users trusted the information they were getting from these pages, users frequently said no, they did not. Furthermore, they reported feeling disoriented when navigating from one product page to another.
Define:
I helped conduct a sitewide audit across Esri.com. This was led by our UI team to conduct our Adobe Experience Manager component usage. Each designer conducted an audit for their own sections. I conducted the audit for products. This allows us to identify inconsistencies across pages, as well as identify things that work for us.
This allowed me to understand how certain chunks of content were thought about at Esri—by the design team and our stakeholders. Likewise, I could make recommendations to the product team. Most were incongruent and part of long-dead campaigns.
Landscape analysis:
We also looked at how both direct competitors like Mapbox structured content on their pages, as well as many indirect companies, such as Microsoft and Adobe, to see how enterprise software companies structured their content.
Strategy + Iteration:
I iterated with my team, to create new strategies for how to lay out pages. We primarily focussed on story-telling elements decided on previously, by the competitive analysis and workshops. We then mapped these storytelling elements to components.
User Feedback:
I validated our groupings through what I refer to as a semi-formal usability test. I used Survey Monkey to survey 45 people. I provided all of the elements to a given page in random order and asked users to order them, in a way that made sense to them.
This is a screenshot of the survey that went out. Users were asked to arrange content in a way that made sense to them. 70% of users arranged content similar to what we had proposed. We took this as a sign that we were on the right path. 30% arranged it in completely different ways. Regardless we decided to move ahead, as the majority of users validated what we had proposed, telling us we were on the right path.
Design + Iteration:
With the order of the story decided upon, I then began experimenting with components, until I was able to craft a component strategy for small, medium, and large products, that was both scalable and consistent.
We then user-tested these with users. We ran both a usability study and an impression test. For the usability study, we focused on tasks such as finding frequently asked questions and blogs, and signing up for a free trial. Most users were able to complete these tasks without getting lost on the page.
Results:
Between Q2-Q3 of 2021, I created a series of strategy decks that were designed to explain to the marketing team the information architecture, the flow of information on each marketing page, and the components chosen to tell that story. This consistent strategy was rolled out to 3 core products, 19 extensions, and 10 apps, between 2021 and 2022.
Furthermore, this strategy has contributed to helping users try and buy products more easily and maintain orientation, as they move between products. Likewise, it also allows users to trust Esri a little more because their product pages are consistent with one another.
You got to the end!
Thanks for stopping by. If you are interested in seeing what else I can do, drop me a line!