01 THE PROBLEM
Customers struggled to understand their usage which led to cart abandonment and increased support tickets.
02 THE RESULTS
127
Self-serve plan upgrades occurred over a 40 day period after release.
3
Plan upgrades (on average) per day over 40 day period after release.
8
Plan upgrades / month from Startup to Professional (1 site plan to a 3 site plan) indicating stickier customers.
03 THE SOLUTION
Intentional UI created trust and transparency
Simple usage meters eliminated user friction and ambiguity. Highly-intentioned users were able to make quicker decisions based on seeing 30-day usage data.
Replacing a listicle with a feature table
For more technical users, seeing specs like server type provided transparency. Previously the information was only available via support or sales inquiry.
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By changing this one UI element the narrative shifted from aggressive upselling to data-driven transparency
Overview
Simple usage meters visualized the customer's 30-day usage to help them make informed decisions.
This data transparency resulted in 127 plan upgrades over a 40-day period (average 3 per day).
Project details
Company
WP Engine
Leading WordPress hosting providing fast, secure, and scalable solutions
Role
Designer + Research
End-to-end design, Prototyping, Interaction design, User interviews
Team and Stakeholders
10+ People
1 Product manager, 8 Developers, 1 Engineering manager, 1 Data analyst, 1 UXR
Timeline
4 Months
Dec 2023 – Apr 2024
Tools
Various
Figma, Zoom, Looker Studio (track conversions), Segment (customer tracking), Miro, Pendo (user journey).
Type
Desktop
Redesign and flow enhancement focused on data-transparency and migration to a self-serve platform.
The problem
Research
Users that accessed the Plans page via global navigation had the highest conversion probability. Making it a key surface for cross-selling and upgrades.
Customers that viewed the following pages: Plans, Usage, and Billing revealed that they were searching for usage information.
Pain points for the existing plans page
Traditional plans page provided little value to 6k monthly visitors
The current page was designed for browsing, not plan management. It lacked usage data, resulting in users seeing an incomplete picture of their plan.
Users manually compare multiple tabs while others navigate away
Highly engaged users (looking to upgrade their plan) would open multiple browser tabs to compare usage and feature lists.
For the less-engaged users, the impact and motivation were speaking volumes
Generic plan names, lack of data was enough friction for 1,500 to leave the page immediately. And 240 ultimately cancelled their plan.
Abstraction of their 30-day usage
Research indicates their usage is highly relevant to decision making. Providing an abstraction of their core plan entitlements can simplify their multi-tab workflow.
Users manually compare the marketing page to compare feature sets
I should spend some time talking about the feature table that we incorporated on the page.
To promote customer trust we provide recommendations purely based on their usage
Gone are the days of upsells and plan recommendations and solely based on their 30-day usage.
Solution
Intentional UI created trust and transparency
Simple usage meters eliminated user friction and ambiguity. Highly-intentioned users were able to make quicker decisions based on seeing 30-day usage data.
Replacing a listicle with a feature table for technical specs
For more technical users, seeing specs like server type provided transparency. Previously only available via the marketing website or support ticket.
Results
The work achieved significant increases across core purchase and upgrade funnel metrics, particularly by improving conversion rates and increasing the percentage of sales that are self-serve.