Restructured the entire platform's navigation in 12 days
Overview
Replaced a six-year-old tab system with an intent-based sidebar across the whole platform, and force-migrated every user with a rollback safety valve.
My role
Owned research, IA design, interaction specs, rollout strategy, and stakeholder alignment. CEO involved from day one.
Team
Timeline
2025
12 days
Impact Overview
12 days
Design and build, entire platform. 30+ pages restructured into three intent categories
1 user
Reverted, then adopted the new nav. Navigation support volume dropped to near-zero
13-month high
Launch-month actives. 222 desktop MAUs and 122 power users
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TL;DR
Problem given
A six-year-old platform had grown over the years without information architecture governance. Users routinely had thirty to forty internal tabs open, could not find features, and called the product confusing.
Problem framed
The navigation model encoded the initial mental model of the product that had not evolved as the product grew. This was a structural problem.
Constraints
Legacy routing architecture could not be rebuilt; the platform had thirty+ pages, all of which had to remain accessible; zero-downtime deployment required
My role
Owned research, IA design, interaction specs, rollout strategy, stakeholder alignment
What shipped
Intent-based taxonomy with three overarching categories (Find, Dig Deep, Connect) covering five sidebar modules; left sidebar navigation with collapsable states; section header components for wayfinding; forced migration with rollback safety valve
Impact
One user reverted and eventually adopted the new nav; navigation support tickets dropped to negligible levels; launch month hit 222 desktop MAUs and 122 power users, both 13-month highs; product architecture simplified into three intent categories