YP Redesign

Consumer/Advertiser Experience Redesign

yp.com | Apple App Store | Google Play

My Role and Activities:

Design Vision | Cross Platform Experiences | Lead User Research, User Experience Design, Usability Testing, Product Development, Taxonomy, SEO, and Analytical Teams | Foster Collaborative Cross-Functional Efforts

YP has separate consumer and advertiser design teams. While that organizational structure is convenient for tracking progress and cost, we found that the two teams operated independently and focused on their own priorities without considering the overall user experience impact. Similar to many organizations, the product is suboptimal in the user experience for their constituents. When the user experience is not cohesive and easy to navigate abandonment rate increases. This is what happened to YP before I joined.

When I joined YP, I immediately sought to create a cohesive user experience and unified brand experience for both consumer and advertiser engagement.

Problem:

The decline in consumer and advertiser engagements on all platforms resulted in a decline in revenue. Furthermore, the legacy code was slow and unable to track cross-platform engagements. 

Solution:

I created a task team and brought on key individuals to collaborate and focus on improving the consumer and advertiser experiences. Together, we identified the key issues, redesigned all platforms, and refactored the code from Ruby to Node.js to improve the page load time. 

Process:

The decline in revenue was strong motivation to move forward quickly. I led the Design, Product, and Engineering teams to focus on a concurrent effort to meet an ambitious timeline. I made sure that everyone was on board and clear on the objective. I spearheaded the Research, Design, and Product teams to gather user insights, analyze the data, and prioritize critical issues. I shared the insights and progress with everyone on the team and the Executive Management. With such transparency and a clear understanding of the shared goal, I led the team to redesign the complete experience to have a more intuitive consumer-to-advertiser look and feel across all platforms.  The team worked hard and long; I recognized and rewarded them weekly and celebrated their accomplishments. Simple gestures of appreciation increased team camaraderie and morale. There was a noticeable sense of pride throughout the company as we rolled out the new design. 

Impact:

The redesign effort helped to increase consumer engagement with a business listing by 25% and advertiser engagement by 16%.