CNET Money Deposits Template
As CNET began to expand it’s editorial authority into the financial space (CNET Money), the team was looking to optimize some of its key page components to improve the overall experience, EEAT signals, and monetization opportunities within the deposits category.
- ROLELead Senior Product Designer
- TOOLSFigma
- TEAMSenior Product Designer, UX Researcher, Product Manager, Engineer, SEO Analyst
- PROJECT LENGTH3 months (6 weeks for research/design and 6 weeks for development and QA)
- YEARMay – July 2023
- CNET MoneyMYMOVE
Project Goals
Improve EEAT signals for google to gain more share of voice.
Increase CTR and interaction within rate tables.
Improve overall user experience when navigating through rate tables and Provide users with helpful information faster.
Discover additional opportunities through user feedback..
Early Research
To kickoff this project, our UX researcher conducted some baseline user tests to determine where the greatest areas of opportunity were. While testing was going on, I was completing competitive research and analysis, outlining any questions and table stakes our experience was missing. Some of the more successful things in our current experience included showing the right information to our users and establishing trust with our users by being transparent on the experience. Some of the less successful things included awkward filters and the estimated earnings number not being clear.
Medium-Fidelity Designs
After the analysis of our results, I then began medium-fidelity designs to share with stakeholders. Within the new concept, I outlined what user feedback and research influenced which decisions. This helped to get alignment and buy-in from stakeholders quickly. One new feature we were particularly excited about was the tables within the content. Users found the table experience very helpful, however they wished for a way to be able to sort the table. This redesign allowed for that functionality.
Final Design
After collecting feedback from stakeholders and our creative team, I moved onto refining the final designs. The new experience was more condensed, organized, and relevant to our audience. It improved EEAT signals by keeping the relevant information easily accessible and provided a more positive experience for our users.
Engineering Handoff
For the engineering handoff, I had to build out multiple pages for each part of the new experience in figma accompanied by notes on how the experience was meant to function. This was helpful to our engineer because he had to build out a new filtering system for the rate tables where detailed documentation and visuals were key in communicating the full functionality.
Business Impact & Learnings
Overall, the rebuilding of our rate tables proved to be a huge value-add for the business. The redesign cut the rate table card height in half which allowed double the amount of products to be seen and compared by our users at once.
The redesign of the rate tables on CNET Money was the first time we used user research to help discover new opportunities within our experiences. This was a new way of thinking for the CNET Money team and I was able to bring in my experience of working alongside our UX Researcher to help drive overall strategy for the business.