Rhombus Navbar Redesign: Streamlining Navigation & Enhancing UX

Problem

Users found the navbar overwhelming and too similar to our main competitor. Sales and Marketing teams wanted to bring more traffic to pages that were often overlooked by customers.

Outcome

Usability testing showed that 100% of users preferred the new design over the previous one. Featured sections and link tags successfully boosted traffic to desired pages by over 50%.

Intro

Rhombus is a customizable physical security platform enabling enterprise organizations to build solutions to meet their unique needs.


Rhombus underwent a profound website redesign to reflect its leader status in the industry and ensure seamless access to its products and services. 

My role

I led the design and development of this project from end to end. I collaborated with Alana Joldersma (designer), Danielle Fischer (content manager), and our manager Sarah Lathe throughout the project.

Problem

Visual Resemblance

The original navbar was heavily inspired by our main competitor, Verkada, confusing our users and diluting our brand identity.

Lack of Clarity

Users found the navbar overwhelming, and locating specific content was challenging based on initial feedback.

Page Visibility

The sales and marketing teams wanted to bring more traffic to some pages, but users often overlooked them.

Why Rhombus? 

The key differential to Rhombus is its customer experience. We wanted to prioritize storytelling and emphasize what sets Rhombus apart.

Process

Research

Our team started by making a Word document dedicated to brainstorming. Our primary focus was to explore innovative ways to infuse storytelling and elevate the customer experience within the Navbar. To do this, we researched our competitors' websites as well as other b2b companies' websites. A new category "Solutions" was introduced to showcase customer-centric solutions and emphasize our exceptional relationship with customers.


In our research, we also looked at different elements that could potentially improve the user experience in the Navbar, with a specific focus on emphasizing important pages and simplifying content discovery.

Information Architecture

In order to have a clearer view of all the content, I combined our current Navbar with our proposed one. The blue pages represented the existing pages, and the grey ones required editing or creation to align with our vision. Together, we rearrange them, maintaining a maximum of five categories to ensure a user-friendly interface.

We used Rhombus website traffic data to guide our decisions and discovered some valuable insights. For instance, we considered placing "Pricing" under the "Solutions" category, but we found out that it wouldn't be beneficial. The data showed that "Pricing" was the most visited page and served as a crucial entry point to our product pages. 

Ideation

After working on the Navbar's information architecture, I started ideating on its interface, while keeping in mind our website's updated design system and ongoing revitalization. My explorations were frequently shared with the team so they could provide feedback til we decided on an option that solves the pain points we had with the previous navbar.

Final Design

Check rhombus.com to see the new navbar in action!

Usability testing

In order to gather qualitative feedback on the enhanced navbar, we interviewed a total of 7 participants, including 5 employees from different teams within Rhombus and 2 customers. At the start of the test, we asked the participants about their experience with our previous navbar and which page they accessed most frequently. Next, we assigned them tasks to complete and observed their navigation. Finally, we provided them with a link to the preview of the redesigned navbar and observed them completing the same tasks.

Outcome

After conducting a usability test, we found that:
• All users preferred the new design rather than return to the previous version.
• 70% of users noticed the Featured sections immediately, and 57% felt compelled to click on the blue tags. These observations suggest that the strategies employed to drive traffic to desired pages were effective.
• 42% of users mentioned the nav bar's solution-focused approach, which aligns with our objective to highlight Rhombus' customer service.

Going forward, we plan to conduct more user interviews to gather additional insights and refine the design further. We will also continue to monitor our data closely to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the nav bar redesign on website traffic, page access, and conversion rates, enhancing overall user engagement.

After conducting a usability test, we found that:
• All users preferred the new design rather than return to the previous version.
• 70% of users noticed the Featured sections immediately, and 57% felt compelled to click on the blue tags. These observations suggest that the strategies employed to drive traffic to desired pages were effective.
• 42% of users mentioned the nav bar's solution-focused approach, which aligns with our objective to highlight Rhombus' customer service.

Going forward, we plan to conduct more user interviews to gather additional insights and refine the design further. We will also continue to monitor our data closely to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the nav bar redesign on website traffic, page access, and conversion rates, enhancing overall user engagement.

After conducting a usability test, we found that:
• All users preferred the new design rather than return to the previous version.
• 70% of users noticed the Featured sections immediately, and 57% felt compelled to click on the blue tags. These observations suggest that the strategies employed to drive traffic to desired pages were effective.
• 42% of users mentioned the nav bar's solution-focused approach, which aligns with our objective to highlight Rhombus' customer service.

Going forward, we plan to conduct more user interviews to gather additional insights and refine the design further. We will also continue to monitor our data closely to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the nav bar redesign on website traffic, page access, and conversion rates, enhancing overall user engagement.