Policygenius
INTRODUCTION
As the Design Director for WeWork’s Consumer Products group, I led a team of 10 designers who supported customer experiences across 5 consumer-facing products.
Our 5 primary consumer products included 3 web systems and 2 native applications (on iOS and Android) that enabled people to explore workspace offerings, find and book space, access and use services, review usage data, and manage their accounts.
Before serving as Design Director, I led the design team for WeWork’s “GrowthTech” products as Design Manager. Our primary focus was the workspace marketplace on wework.com
__
Below, I have included an overview of the work done on wework.com in 2018 and 2019, which included the design and development of WeWork’s first e-commerce experience for workspace.
Role
Design Director, Consumer Products
WeWork.com, 2019 & 2020
How might WeWork offer a superior purchasing experience while reducing sales costs?
Project Overview
WeWork’s GrowthTech product team was committed to delivering a better experience for businesses and individuals seeking workplace solutions while reducing costs for our Community and Sales teams.
As Design Manager, I led a team of designers, researchers, and prototypers dedicated to WeWork’s consumer-facing growth products.
The following case study is focused on the redesign of WeWork.com and the launch of our “self-serve” initiative, which has enabled users to find and lease workspace entirely online.
SCOPE
Timeline: 2018 - 2019
Role: Design Manager
CHALLENGE & GOAL
In 2018, WeWork.com was no longer able to support users or business goals effectively.
The site did not meet accessibility guidelines, performance was slow, the IA could not scale to support our evolving product offerings, average bounce rates were above 75% on core conversion pages, and the UI reflected three legacy design systems.
WeWork needed a more effective and efficient way of selling workspace. Our users needed a better way to find, evaluate, and purchase workspace.
The challenge: how do we transform WeWork.com from outdated “brochure-ware” into a responsive web product capable of selling workspace entirely online?
We embarked on a two-phase approach.
Phase 1: Build a scalable foundation for our evolving business needs and growing range of users
Phase 2: Create a new buy experience for our core audience
Design System OVERHAUL
WeWork.com, 2018
After completing a comprehensive audit of existing patterns, components, IA, content strategy, and core-conversion UX, we began the development of Ray*, our new design system.
*Ray is named after Ray Eames.
Ray is a reflection of WeWork’s physical spaces and functions like industrial shelving to highlight the content itself.
The structural interface is more performant, accessible, and focused to support the online sale of workspace. The limited palette and ample white space give room for a wider range of content and can adapt to brand changes, both online and in our physical spaces.
We also developed a visual language for communicating our different types of workspace offerings, which complemented the company’s approach to photography but allowed users to distinguish types of space from actual spaces (i.e. reservable inventory).
CONVERSION UX
While the new design system provided an improved foundation, the core UX for finding, comparing, and evaluating workspace options was fundamentally broken. The site did not reflect recent changes to the business or support the purchasing behaviors of new audiences.
We partnered with IDEO on a research initiative to better understand our growing range of customers and map their end-to-end “buyers journey,” which provided a framework for redesigning the core-conversion flow for our primary users seeking workspace.
Prototyping & USER Testing
We tested a variety of design concepts and flows based on our improved understanding of our users’ needs, focusing on individuals and smaller teams, who account for approximately 85% of our web traffic.
Self-Serve Workspace
Ultimately, we rebuilt our search experience from the ground up, introduced an entirely new type of page to convey offering details, and designed a feature for interactive floor plans so that users could navigate workspace inventory spatially.
The evolved flow allows users to sign a lease and purchase space entirely online, as well as schedule a tour before committing online.
Self-Serve is now live in 12 major U.S. markets and will deploy to select cities in Europe and Asia throughout Q2 of 2020.
We have identified a number of operational challenges that the current experience (and infrastructure) pose for our Community and regional sales teams, which must be addressed prior to continued expansion.
Interactive floor plans, comparative pricing tools, robust filtering, and bookmarking are currently in development and are on-track to ship in the coming months.