Redesigned Sleep Foundation’s website into an intuitive, user-friendly hub that boosts engagement, trust, and affiliate revenue.
Website
Overview
Sleep Foundation, a leading authority on sleep health and wellness, approached us to reimagine their website. While the site already attracted substantial traffic due to its high SEO rankings and authoritative content, users faced significant challenges in navigating the site and engaging with its resources. The layout buried critical information, like medically reviewed articles and detailed testing insights, which undermined the site’s credibility and user trust.
As the Lead UX Designer and Strategist, I led efforts to overhaul the navigation, improve user engagement, and enhance content accessibility. By conducting in-depth research and user testing, we uncovered key opportunities to streamline the user experience and surface valuable information. The redesign resulted in a more intuitive and engaging website that reflected the Sleep Foundation’s authority and commitment to health and wellness.
Improved navigation helped users easily find topics and reduced frustration.
Increased affiliate sales through more visible and user-friendly links.
Boosted email sign-ups with integrated forms, quizzes, and exit intent popups.
Despite its rich content, the Sleep Foundation website presented several user experience challenges:
Complex Navigation: An over-reliance on a hamburger menu made it difficult for users to find content, leading to frustration and increased bounce rates.
Dense Articles: Lengthy, text-heavy articles were difficult to read, reducing engagement and time spent on key pages.
Visibility of Reviews: Product reviews, some of the site’s most popular content, were buried and lacked clarity about the unbiased, ethical approach Sleep Foundation takes in recommendations.
Trust and Credibility: Critical information, like medically reviewed content and detailed product testing processes, was hidden, leading to missed opportunities to build user trust.
To address navigation and engagement challenges, we conducted comprehensive research:
User Testing:
Pre-redesign: 15 participants were asked to locate specific topics. Results showed that users avoided the hamburger menu and relied heavily on homepage content, leading to frustration.
Post-redesign: A follow-up user test revealed that the new navigation system significantly improved users’ ability to find topics quickly and efficiently.
Analytics Review: Identified high-exit pages and areas with low engagement, providing critical data to guide the redesign.
Stakeholder Interviews: Collaborated with medical experts and content creators to align site structure with organizational goals and ensure accuracy.
The redesign focused on creating an engaging, trustworthy, and user-friendly website that prioritized accessibility, credibility, and ease of navigation.
Key improvements included:
Simplified Navigation: Replaced the hamburger menu with a clear menu bar, organizing content into intuitive categories like Sleep Solutions and Sleep Topics.
Scannable Articles: Redesigned lengthy articles with clear headings, visuals, and modular layouts to improve readability and engagement.
Unbiased Product Reviews: Updated layouts and messaging to highlight Sleep Foundation’s ethical, expert-driven recommendations, making reviews more accessible and trustworthy.
Integrated Features: Surfaced medically reviewed content, detailed testing insights, and affiliate links while introducing a quiz to personalize recommendations and engage users.
Enhanced Email Capture: Implemented form captures, quizzes, and exit intent popups to significantly increase email sign-ups.
The redesign delivered measurable improvements:
Improved Navigation: Post-redesign user testing showed users relied on the new navigation system to locate topics, reducing frustration and improving engagement.
Engaging Articles: Scannable layouts and interactive features increased time spent on articles and improved user satisfaction.
Trusted Product Reviews: Clearer messaging and a stronger focus on ethics reinforced user trust in Sleep Foundation’s recommendations.
Increased Affiliate Sales: More visible and user-friendly links boosted affiliate revenue.
Email Capture Success: Form capture through content, quizzes, and exit intent popups significantly increased email sign-ups.
Content Accessibility: Previously buried information, like medically reviewed content, became more apparent, leading to positive user feedback.
This project highlighted the importance of aligning user needs with content accessibility and credibility, offering valuable takeaways:
User-Centric Design Drives Trust: Making features like medically reviewed articles and testing details more visible significantly improved user trust and engagement.
Navigation Matters: Simplifying navigation and ensuring users could find topics easily transformed their experience, demonstrating the impact of small structural changes.
The Power of Iteration: Post-launch user testing validated the success of the redesign while revealing the importance of surfacing critical information.
Collaboration Yields Results: Working closely with stakeholders and medical experts ensured the content structure supported both user needs and organizational goals.