Overview
I led the redesign of the business banking home page which aimed to improve the perception of the brand and clearly communicate relevant information to empower business owners to make educated decisions about their businesses. I guided my team in designing this crucial page focused on addressing issues identified during discovery while striking a balance between keeping the visual style aligned with the greater U.S. Bank website and stretching the brand styles in a way that allowed for business banking to have it's own unique identity.
I collaborated closely with product, engineering, business stakeholders, research, and content to ensure our solutions met user needs, supported business goals, and scaled effectively. The redesigned home page increased user satisfaction scores and left users feeling more likely to explore U.S. Bank's offerings for their business banking needs.
I also reshaped the strategy for the navigation structure aiming to reduce bounce rate and enhance findability. The proposed navigation changes boosted task success rates, reduced bounce rate, reduced the ToT, and most importantly, left users feeling empowered to grow their businesses with the help of U.S. Bank.
Goals:
ROLE
Co-Lead Designer (1 of 2)
RESPONSIBILITIES
Creative Direction
End-to-End UX/UI Design Process Leadership
Information Architecture & Taxonomy
COLLABORATORS
20+ teams: UX Design, Product, Business, Research, Content, Development
TIMELINE
Q1 - Q2 2025
TOOLS
Figma, FigJam, Miro, UserTesting, Optimal Workshop, Google Analytics, JIRA
The Challenge
The current Business Banking site design was outdated, content dense, and bloated causing users to either feel overwhelmed with the amount of information being presented to them or frustrated when they couldn't easily find what they were looking for leading to them leaving the site altogether.
Current STate
Engage users with impactful content and reduce navigation related friction so they can ultimately progress through the funnel towards conversion.
To feel educated, enabled, and empowered to make the best business decisions for their situations and easily find products that will help them grow their businesses.
PROBLEM TO SOLVE
The current experience is overwhelming, confusing, and frustrating to users.
Gathering Insights
Numerous research activities revealed both content and experience issues. These insights shaped early iterations, prioritizing trustworthiness, findability and being inspirational.
Research Activities
Jobs to be Done
Mental Models
Competitive Analysis
Journey Maps
Quantitative Data Analysis
Experience Audit
UX/UI Audit
User Surveys
User Interviews
Archetype Development
Emerging Themes:
Build trust through multiple methods and maintain a hometown, familiar feel overall
Users should be able to understand the nav structure and move around the site seamlessly
Spark the desire to engage with U.S. Bank through content and design
HOW MIGHT WE
How might we ensure that we're serving up the right content at the right time and offering clear pathways around the different areas within the site?
Forming a POV
Through review and analysis of the findings and learnings from discovery, we arrived at a set of experience principles that would guide every design decision.
Experience Principles
Developing & Testing Concepts
After initial iterations, unmoderated homepage usability testing with 6 participants validated that a more simplified, streamlined, and motivational experience led to increased user confidence, comfort, and a prevailing positive sentiment.
Additionally, we conducted a comparative tree test with 200 participants and 2 different information architecture structures that shed light on how users are thinking about navigating a site such as this. Captured user feedback from both testing activities led to refinements of the homepage design and informed the decision on which navigation structure to move forward with.
Reimagining the Homepage
Key Findings from the Usability Study:
Key Findings from the Tree Tests:
The Optimized Design & Structure
The final MVP delivered a simplified, empowering experience that motivated users to achieve their business goals with the help of U.S. Bank.
A Redesigned Homepage
After some refinements made based on the usability study the resulting homepage design gave the business banking area of the site it's own distinct feel compared to the other U.S. Bank verticals. It hit on the 3 themes uncovered during discovery.
The new design had less clutter and featured content that aimed to prove to users that U.S. Bank is a reputable partner worthy of their consideration.
The simplification of elements and addition of tabbed sections improved findability by purposefully curtailing the amount of content being displayed on the page at once.
The substance of the content also shifted from a more pure product marketing perspective to one that centered around relationships and services with products coming second.
Revised Information Architecture
Taking what was learned from the tree test several tweaks were made to the mega menu navigation and information architecture culminating in a unique structure for the business banking area of the U.S. Bank website. This sparked a larger global navigation change initiative that is still ongoing. This solution focused on the trustworthy & reliable and findability themes from discovery.
The mega menu allowed for more space to display menu items at once thus increasing findability.
Showing multiple layers of navigation at a glance enabled a deeper view of the sub-pages and offered a way to go straight into an interior page from the top level.
IMPACTS
The Results
The project improved task completion, reduced bounce rate, reduced the time on task and enriched the reputation of U.S. Bank among its business banking customers. By simplifying the experience and navigation we shifted the focus from product driven to relationship driven which lends itself to reducing friction and easing the customer journey through the funnel to conversion.
Task Success RAte
BOUNCE RAte
ToT RATE
What I Learned
Content is more than just words
Changing the content and adding context had a dramatic effect on the perception of the brand and caused users to feel more confident in partnering with the brand.
Ease of use and familiarity sometimes beat out innovative solutions
This project revealed that in certain situations like the navigation structure users prefer simple, familiar patterns rather than new inventive ones.
Research is worth fighting for
The findings from research that the client initially didn't want included in the scope proved to be worth its weight in gold when it came to creating the solution
Conceptualizing a future-state vision and experience for the MyHerbalife Distributor platform informed by insights and underpinned by data, enabling the prioritization of key experiences and creating a high-level product roadmap for activation by delivery teams.
