Transforming an Engineering Platforms stale Homepage

Transforming an Engineering Platforms stale Homepage

Transforming an Engineering Platforms stale Homepage

Role

Role

Role

Product Designer

Project Lead

Company

Company

Company

Optum / UHG

Timeline

Mar 2025 - Jul 2025

Team

Team

Team

Product Owners

Content Writer

Visual Designer

Engineering Team

Industry

Industry

Industry

Healthcare

B2B

Internal Platform

Principles

Principles

Principles

Wayfinding

Visual Hierarchy

Navigation

Due to NDA restrictions, some details, visuals, and illustrations have been anonymized.

TL;DR Summary

TL;DR Summary

The Problem

The homepage of a 20K+ MAU engineering platform was outdated, confusing, and misaligned with new cloud and AI initiatives.


What I did

Led a full homepage redesign re-establishing content hierarchy, clarifying value propositions, validating decisions through usability testing, and supporting both returning and exploratory users.


Impact

  • Positive usability and visual appeal feedback (80% favorable)

  • Clearer navigation and discovery for new and returning users

  • Homepage aligned to 2025 cloud migration and AI priorities

Overview

Overview

The Engineering Platform homepage is the primary entry point to a large internal ecosystem used by engineers, developers, and product teams across Optum and UnitedHealth Group. Serving more than 60K+ users annually.


It serves as a centralized hub for discovering engineering services, tools, AI assistance, documentation, and community resources, helping users navigate a complex, multi-product environment efficiently.


I led a redesign of this homepage to ensure it accurately represented the platform’s value, supported both returning and exploratory users, and aligned with evolving enterprise priorities.

The Problem

The Problem

This homepage is the primary entry point into the engineering ecosystem for up to 20K monthly users, but it no longer guided users effectively, led to confusion, and had become stale.


  • Homepage content was very outdated and not tied to any CMS

  • Content hierarchy misrepresented platform priorities

  • Multiple components didn't reflect their product effectively

  • Several sections were being decommissioned

  • New leadership initiatives (Cloud + AI) were not reflected


A content and hierarchy review of the old homepage

A content and hierarchy review of the old homepage

My Role

My Role

I owned the UX work end-to-end, including:

  • Partnering with PMs, engineers, and stakeholders, re-shaping the early feature and MVP scope

  • Auditing the existing homepage

  • Defining a new content hierarchy with a content strategist

  • Designing and iterating on all homepage components and navigation

  • Prototyping and usability testing

  • Delivering annotated designs for development

Approach

Approach

  1. Re-established content hierarchy based on real user needs and platform priorities

New hierarchy notes and brainstorming prep

New hierarchy notes and brainstorming prep

  1. Designed low-fi modular components and assembled a cohesive long-scroll experience

Low fidelity draft homepage layout with notes

Low fidelity draft homepage layout with notes

Full page draft to final design progression

Full page draft to final design progression

  1. Refined key sections (Community, AI Assistant, navigation) for clarity and usability

Draft to Final progression for key components

Draft to Final progression for key components

  1. Validated decisions through an unmoderated usability study

Usability Test Results

Usability Test Results

  • 15 total participants, all experienced platform users

  • 70% regularly visit the homepage

  • 67% preferred the final design options from an A/B component comparison

  • 80% found the new design visually appealing

  • 80% were either motivated to click a CTA, learn about new offerings, or use AI to explore

  • Majority of users rated the experience as clear and easy to use

User reflections:


"Cool tool!  I just finished the study.  I really like the redesign. The current homepage has too much text and visual at the top of the page, and too may different formats - I find myself not reading most of what's on the page and just going to search."


"I think that bringing the cloud migration and workload placement forward given it's the top technology initiative is smart. I will only scroll a page so far before I turn to search."


"I thought it was easy to navigate to catalog and chat, which are two of the ones I use most." 

Outcome

Outcome

The final homepage:

  • Clearly communicates platform value

  • Improves navigation and content discovery

  • Aligns with cloud migration and AI initiatives

  • Scales more effectively with the broader ecosystem


This work helped modernize a critical entry point used by 20K+ monthly users.

The complete and final homepage design

The complete and final homepage design

Challenges & Tradeoffs

Challenges & Tradeoffs

Stakeholder alignment

  • Early requirements were vague and solely focused on content, but my team and I clearly articulated other key problem areas and I guided the way forward with early wireframes

  • Our PO pushed for a search-only homepage, but we validated that our users are already very aware of search and that new users will need clear guidance


Constraints

  • I only had access to existing users and only 26% of users I reached out to responded

  • Some UX animations were deprioritized by dev, but I ensured the main enhancements were in MVP

  • I focused on the main MVP items I proposed vs. perfection, and spoke into future iterations


Future thinking

I explored concepts for deeper AI integration into the top of the homepage & search, to inform future roadmap discussions, especially since feedback showed that experienced users often went right to search. This helped:

  • Guide PO search preferences to a solution based on user feedback and emerging technologies

  • Clearly guide long-term platform iterations and future roadmap

Potential future phase homepage iteration and exploration
Potential future phase homepage iteration and exploration

Potential future phase homepage iteration and exploration

Thank you for taking time to explore my recent work

Thank you for taking time to explore my recent work

Thank you for taking time to explore my recent work