Problem Identification

The key to making an impact on signup always starts with finding the right opportunity. So my PM, analyst and I began by looking at the visitor conversion data to signup across different landing pages. From doing this, we realized that visitor homepage, and the discussion post page had the biggest opportunity. They had a large amount of traffic but low conversion to signups.

My PM and I worked with an analyst to understand why these problems exist. First, we tried to understand what people were / were not interacting with by looking at bounce rates, feature interaction data, and page scroll data. Next, we observed user sessions on Fullstory, and conducted usability tests.

We discovered that the two pages actually had very different problems:

• Visitor homepage had low signup because users immediately bounced when they reached the page because they didn’t understand what Houzz offered

• Discussion post page had low signup because users came from SEO, and immediately left the site when they saw the content

hypothesis

To form strong hypotheses my PM and I brainstormed different ways we could try to tackle these pain points while considering SEO, technical constraints, and what had been tried in the past. From doing this we derived that:

• Clearer value prop would reduce bounce rate on visitor homepage

• Exposed signup field on visitor homepage would improve signup while maintaining long term retention

• Directing users to other inspirational content would drive more signups on discussion page

• Showcasing relevant questions would drive more signups on discussion page

Testing

For visitor homepage, the primary focus for the design was around providing a clear indication of what visitors can do on Houzz, while enticing them to sign up. Because monetization was a sub goal of our team at the time, this design also had ways for users to shop or find professionals without signing up. Lastly it had SEO content to drive more traffic to the page.

For the discussion post page, I leveraged the existing design system to place a module at the top of the page that directed users to photo pages categorized by rooms. We then experimented on when we would ask users to sign up. Next, I designed a ‘similar question module’ and placed it in the comment section, and then experimented on the positioning of the module.

Results

Visitor homepage had a 20% increase in signups while maintaining monetization metrics and holding up good retention. Directory module placement on the browse page led to x% increase in signup, while putting the similar question module in the comment section led to y% increase in signup.