Auditing IA
Project Details
Industry
Automotive
Service
UX Research
Role
Snr Experience Designer
When
2025
Note:
This case study has been adapted to respect client confidentiality. Brand names, visuals, and specific product details have been removed or simplified.
Auditing IA
Reorganising and restructuring portal content to improve navigation, task completion, and the overall customer experience.
UX Research
I conducted a full audit of the customer portal, reviewing content, CTAs, modules, interactions, and accessibility to understand how the experience was structured and where it was underperforming. I then mapped the portal’s information architecture, analysing navigation pathways, entry and exit points, and content hierarchy to understand how users moved through the experience. This analysis revealed duplicated pathways, prospect-focused messaging within an ownership environment, and multiple exit points that fragmented the journey and prevented the portal from functioning as a clear destination for customer tasks.
Landscape Analysis & Insight Synthesis
I conducted a landscape review of our competitors' Existing Customer Experience portals to better understand how other e-commerce brands structure post-purchase experiences and surface key customer tasks. This analysis highlighted common patterns around streamlined navigation, clearer task entry points, and stronger integration between servicing the existing customers' activities. I then synthesised these findings from my audits, analytic reviews, information architecture analysis, landscape research and affinity mapping. This process surfaced the key themes impacting the experience, including navigation friction, misaligned messaging, and Existing Customer products & services being difficult to discover. These insights formed the foundation of the recommendations I presented to the stakeholders.
Repositioning the portal as a destination for existing customer activities rather than a pass-through page.
My insights informed three strategic recommendations to reposition the portal as a destination for Existing Customer activity rather than a pass-through portal. I presented the following 3 proposed directions. 1. A Lift & Shift: Migrate the portal into the headless environment, remove duplicate CTAs, surface high-performing CTAs, and simplify New vs Existing Customer pathways. 2. Lift & Shift (1) + Improved Wayfinding: Introduce clearer navigation paths back into the portal from exits & related pages to strengthen journey continuity. 3. Lift & Shift (1) + Full Customer Product & Service Integration: Integrate Servicing, Products, and Support directly within the portal to create a single destination for existing customer tasks and reduce fragmented journeys.
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