Aligning teams through an IA redesign
- Role
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Senior UX Manager
@Trustpilot ⊂ 2018 - 2021
When I joined Trustpilot, the product organization was struggling with a key challenge: a fragmented B2B app experience caused by autonomous teams working each on their own roadmap. Each team had its own menu item, each item screaming for attention. This created a confusing user journey, especially during onboarding, a key challenge for growth.
Too many first level items in the old IA
Aligning the org around one journey
To solve this, I partnered with a product manager and their team to lead an information architecture project focused on redesigning the main menu. While one product team drove the work, all 7 product teams contributed by revising structures in their own areas, and we engaged ~20 teams across the organization, about 50-60 stakeholders including commercial teams like support and customer success.
Preparing with card sorting to understand function groups across the app
Our core principle was simple:
A better information architecture requires a better understanding of both our organization and its users.
To get everyone on the same page, we designed a strategic process with four parallel tracks, ensuring our solution would be both user-centered and internally aligned.
- User research track: We wanted to understand how current users perceived the app and intended to continuously test versions via usability testing, card sorting, and tree testing. This was our core discovery track.
- Alignment track: We did workshops with all product teams and key stakeholders over several weeks, understanding key concerns, ambitions, and expectations towards the new IA while also getting buy-in. With some groups, we set up further workshops to understand how the new menus would impact their work.
- Design track: We involved the entire design team to widen our solution space, proving that great ideas come from a collaborative culture.
- Prototype track: We used a running prototype from day one to test our vision, turning abstract concepts into a tangible experience we could validate and refine.
I was working within each of these tracks both as coach and the occasional player in various ways to enable and support the individual contributors driving them.
What we delivered: clearer menu, transparent workflow to follow
What it delivered
After three months, we had a solution everyone had agreed on, and customer success teams reported significantly easier onboarding for new customers.
- ~20%
- intended-flow lift
- 7 teams
- behind one IA
- 5+ yrs
- still in production
The success wasn’t just in the metrics. It was proof that internal alignment along a coherent user journey is a strategic business driver, one that compounds over time.