Navigation Re-Architecture
I spear-headed this project to evaluate and enhance the usability of Red Hat’s Customer Portal through a better organization of the site’s main navigation.
My process involved creating and running card sorting tests and tree testing tasks with both internal and external users to gain information regarding the previous and my proposed architecture.
After reporting my findings which validated my initial thoughts, I implemented the new navigation scheme, during which I took the opportunity to re-write the HTML and CSS of the navigation, making use of CSS3 with graceful degradation. With the re-write of the navigation’s code, there was a noticeable increase in load time across all pages.
These are the measured results:
- traffic to content increased over 20%
- content that had less than 1% visibility were accessed in the top 50 pieces of content
- people increased their time on site 15%
- 10% more people performed critical actions on the site after design elements were changed
- requests for help with the site have decreased by 12%
- Google has indexed 20% more pages due to architectural changes
- Traffic & time on site have grown over 20%
Product Downloads
I was asked to make the downloading of Red Hat’s products an easier experience throughout the Customer Portal. After performing an expert review of the find-ability and successful download of Red Hat products, I worked alongside both the engineering team that provided the downloads and product owners to create plans to update both the downloads area of the site as well as individual product pages.
For the individual product pages, I initially created “download modules” that included a link to the download as well as information such as the size of the download, it’s release date and architecture needed.
Once the gap between product pages and their respective downloads was bridged, I worked to create “Get Started” sections within each product page to walk users through the steps to download and install software.
Within the “Downloads” area of the site, I crafted wireframes and prototypes while working alongside the engineering team and the Customer Portal’s Product Owner to create an easy way for users to quickly narrow down the exact software they needed to download.