Case Study
For Dummies Home Page Redesign
I redesigned the main home page for Wiley's For Dummies brand. For Dummies is a book brand recognized for its commitment to simplifying complex topics and making knowledge accessible to all. This was a 6 week redesign of the home page that increased repeat visitors to the site by over 40% and increased book sales by approximately 60%.
Product: Wiley's For Dummies
My Role: UX/UI Designer
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Team: Individual Contributor
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Tools: Figma, Adobe CC, Pendo
Context
For Dummies home page suffered from low engagement, and too many users were entering the site then abandoning the platform before exploring the books, leading to a significant loss in revenue.
Problem
Users found it difficult to navigate the site through the home page and did not find the content enganging, leading to a lack of interest and few users browsing the available book options and new releases.
Solution
I redesigned the home page to focus less on naming every single book category and focus more on creating a story around the books and generating interest around subject matters that people may not have been interested in before.
Impact
The redesign led to over 60% increased book sales and over 40% increase in repeat visitors over 8 months, increasing revenue and online brand recognition significantly.
Step 1 - Experience Audit
The original home page (shown below) was mainly focused on book categories. The problem is that the For Dummies brand has an incredibly large offering of categories, so they end up becoming overwhelming and get lost within each other when displayed together on screen. There was also inconsistency in image useage in their trending articles and the call to actions were simply "Load more". The main focus of the home page was a general search bar that didn't have a real focus. There was also a large newsletter section at the bottom of the page that got very few sign ups and ended up being more decoration than anything.
Key Takeaways
After analyzing the old web design, I came up with the hypotheses below.
The amount of categories to choose from are overwhelming and get lost in the page.
The "Load more" CTA's aren't enticing to users and do not generate any interest in the subjects displayed.
The search bar is the main focus but users likely abandon it because it is too broad.
The newsletter section takes up a lot of the page and has very few interactions.
Step 2 - User Research
I led the end-to-end research initiative to validate the hypotheses. This included designing and launching all surveys, recruiting participants, managing sign-ups, developing test plans, and conducting in-depth interviews of existing customers. We also used Pendo to collect analytics of user behaviors and analyze them. I synthesized the insights and presented the findings to senior leadership to drive alignment on our design plan.
I used Pendo's visitor analytics and heat map features to track where users were clicking, how long they stayed on the site, and the average session length on the site. I found that most users would only interact with the search bar then abandon the site quickly after.
"I use the search tool bar to find specific books, but I don't use the site for much else."
For Dummies Customer
in 1:1 Interview
I conducted user interviews with previous customers. They mentioned it was easy enough to find exactly what they were looking for, but browsing other books was very difficult and the categories felt more intimidating than interesting.
I deployed surveys to customers and found that they did not find the article picks engaging and the book suggestions seemed irrelevant to a lot of people.
Step 3 - Personas
The For Dummies Fan
Already a customer looking for their next good read.
Motivation
Loves the brand and excited to learn more about their interests and favorite subjects.
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Behavior
Visits site regularly looking for the newest drops and sales. Likely follows For Dummies on social media.
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Pain Points
Wants an easy way to see what's new and clear navigation to their preferred interests.
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Design Consideration
Needs categories split up and easily filtered. Also needs a way to see what's new.
The Newbie
Never bought a For Dummies book but interested in seeing what they are all about.
Motivation
Cares about learning and wants to dive into new subjects, but doesn't know where to begin.
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Behavior
Likes to browse articles and discover new subjects.
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Pain Points
Doesn't know where to begin. Search function is useless to them because they are looking to discover new things.
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Design Consideration
Needs an easy way to browse books and articles and find new interests that they may not have thought to explore before.
Step 4 - Design Process
Building on user research insights and keeping my personas in mind, I developed a streamlined navigation flowchart and corresponding wireframes to align product and engineering teams around a user-centric solution. This approach balanced technical feasibility with clear usability goals, ensuring cross-functional alignment from the outset. We had continual reviews with our stakeholders and the engineering team to make sure we were on the right track.
Step 5 - User Testing
I decided to do a few methods of user testing after creating prototypes of the home page. I wanted to A/B test a few elements and I wanted to collect qualitative feedback from real customers. The A/B testing was conducted through Pendo and yielded some interesting results for us. We found that the CTA on the top of the homepage was a useful element, allowing Newbie users to click straight through to the e-commerce page and browse. We also found that the Featured Collections slider wasn't very helpful for our users and didn't allow for further exlporation like we had hoped.
We also had a group of existing users as well as a group of users who had never been to the For Dummies site before test the prototypes. The findings were as follows.
100% of users in both categories found the site easy to navigate and understand.
New users liked the CTA at the top of the page allowing for immediate browsing.
Existing users preferred the search bar in the header, allowing for easy access but not being the main focus.
All users found the featured books and featured collections to be helpful and enjoyable to browse.
This user testing gave us a much clearer idea of what we wanted to include in our final design to achieve our goals and what we could edit out. Users were showing a much more enthusiasm about the brand and the new browsing capabilities.
Step 6 - Final Design
I utilized Figma to design and finalize responsive templates across all breakpoints, beginning with wireframe kits to accelerate development and later refining the UI to align with the existing design system. I collaborated closely with engineering partners, leveraging interactive mobile and desktop prototypes to clearly communicate user flows and interaction patterns, ensuring seamless implementation.
Learnings
This project deepened my understanding of e-commerce design and reinforced that user research is the foundation of any effective design process. I recognized that solutions effective for one user group may not translate universally, underscoring the importance of context-specific insights. I also learned the value of validating assumptions through usability testing once a functional prototype is available, what appears to be a solution may not actually address user needs. While there is still work to be done on the e-commerce pages, we now have actionable performance data to inform next steps and guide our optimization strategy moving forward.