Redesigning a business intelligence portal for CRU Group, improving content discoverability and implementing GenAI features, resulting in a 40% increase in platform usage.
Client: CRU Group
Role: Sole UX/UI Designer
Project dates: April 2021-April 2024
Tools: UX Pin, Mural, Adobe XD
Team
Delivery Manager / Product Owner
Scrum Master / Account Manager
2 Frontend Developers
4 Backend and infrastructure engineers
1 Visual Designer
Project Summary
CRU is a business intelligence company, and they have an online platform which subscribers use to access articles and data about commodities based on research and expert knowledge from analysts.
Key goals
- Increase the visits and engagement time on the online platform
- Add new features to meet user needs and business opportunities
- Improve CMS workflows for the CRU content teams
Discovery & Research
To understand the problems for our users and the business I carried out research activities with our stakeholders, content teams and selected clients
User Research
I ran a series of workshops, interviews and researched existing customer support issues.
- Analysed platform analytics and support tickets
- Conducted user interviews to identify different audiences
- Mapped customer journeys to identify pain points and opportunities
6 personas
Together with our stakeholders and a limited number of interviews we identified our main personas.
- Buyers and sellers
- Analysts
- Strategists
- C-suite
- CRU Content teams
- CRU Analysts
CRU’s business intelligence platform was underperforming due to:
- Poor content discoverability
- Rigid content hierarchy causing content duplication
- Lack of clear content strategy
- Overwhelming notifications creating noise
- Limited small-screen engagement
Design Approach
New Content Strategy
- Transformed the rigid content hierarchy into a flexible model powered by a taxonomy engine
- Helped client to develop a formal strategy to deliver relevant information at the right time
- Implemented the HEART analytics framework to measure success
New Information Architecture
- Created new sitemap and navigation to reflect user’s mental models
- Global navigation to get users to the content they are looking for
- Visible content filters for added usability
- Featured articles area to tackle a known publishing problem with ‘sticky’ content
- New personalised area for users to curate content (My CRU)
Design system and Agile build
- Collaborated with a visual designer to create a new visual style and UI patterns for the platform
- Involved the engineering team in the design process
- Collectively produced assets and specifications for UI implementation
- Took responsibility for expanding the Design System
- Worked with developers to improve consistency and accessibility
Improved reading experience
We designed a range of article templates that the content team could use. The key design principle was a good reading experience with a focus on the content, supported by onward journeys to data and related content.
Data views
Initially our improvements to the data views on the platform were confined to improving the usability of the data tables for each commodity subscription.
Dashboard and data cards design
- User research indicated that the price tables were not useful on the site
- Clients wanted to know the latest prices and have quick access to data downloads
- They also wanted to bring together and relevant news and analysis with the data to give it context
- The evolution of the dashboards was iterative – I started with quick wins to demonstrate how we could pull data together using the existing design system
- I developed the final designs after collaborating with the stakeholders, the content teams, our engineering team and selected platform users
Responsive Design
All designs were responsive and optimised for small screen use.
Project Outcomes
~ 40% increase in platform use after relaunch
Increased session times on platform
Significant growth in small-screen usage
Demonstrated the ROI of regular usability testing
Reduced production costs through improved internal workflows
“Ville expertly guided us through regular sessions, providing a handrail to ensure we progressed. His comprehensive attention to detail, clear explanations and easy to understand wire framing ensured effective decisions were made, good outcomes reached and consistency in delivery achieved.”
Darren Rackham
Production Manager