Business Made Simple

A complete UX/UI overhaul of the Agency for Small and Medium Businesses׳ main site. Creating a clear, unified experience that helps business users find what they need - faster and with confidence.

B2B

BUSINESS

SERVICES

INFO ARCHITECTURE

WEB

MOBILE

CLIENT

SBA

Role

Design Manager

TEAM

UX/UI | UXR | DEV

TEAM

UX/UI | UXR | DEV

Overview

Design overhaul.

My team redesigned the SBA's main site from the ground up - rebuilding its architecture, redesigning core flows and creating a cohesive, responsive user experience. Our work improved content discoverability, strengthened clarity, and laid the groundwork for a consistent experience across platforms.

Background

The SBA's site suffered poor usability, high bounce rates and inconsistency in navigation, mobile and branding across mini-sites. Users couldn't find critical information like how to apply for grants or locate local business centers - leading to confusion, frustration, and drop-offs.

The Challenge

Heuristic and analytics review.

Our first step was to review the existing site's analytics and conduct a UX Audit. By doing so, we uncovered major usability issues, design inconsistencies, content duplication, and poor navigation that led to user drop-off, and overall dissatisfaction. User feedback revealed that the experience felt unprofessional, old fashioned and clumsy. Standing in complete contradiction to what the SBA was expected to be for SME's.

Key Process Highlights

Restructured site architecture.

We mapped the existing website architecture and identified key drop-off points and over complexities. The existing structure had no clear information hierarchy, excess navigation menus and high overlap in navigation paths which led to page and content duplications. Before diving into the design, we defined key JTBD based on user feedback and rebuilt the flows to support them.  

Old site architecture: lack of info hierarchy, duplication of content, same structural (and visual) content status, excess navigation menus and high overlap.

New site architecture: defined key information areas, consolidated content and unified navigation.

Key Process Highlights

Streamlined & unified navigation.

Three different menus led to the same places in different ways. That made it difficult for users to understand navigation, remember where things are and how to reach them, scan content quickly and develop a learning curve. Using card sorting techniques, we replaced the complex triple navigation with a streamlined mega menu based on user needs (services, articles, courses and training, guides).

Design Solution

Simple and approachable.

We created a responsive interface that makes navigating complex content feel simple and approachable. The new design introduced smart filtering, clear hierarchy, and an accessible tone, balancing professional credibility with user-friendliness.

New site navigation: unified mega menu, with updating shortcuts and call to actions according to collected user needs.

Design Solution

Professional, yet approachable.

We created a responsive interface that makes navigating complex content feel simple and approachable. The new design introduced clear hierarchies, smart filtering, easy search, and an accessible tone, balancing professional credibility with user-friendliness.

The Outcome

Consistency across platforms.

The site is now consistent across the SBA's platforms and serves as a scalable foundation for future assets, services and mini-sites. We created a new UI language that is the base for the SBA's design system.

55% increase in time spent on key pages

35% drop in support questions related to content findability

2.5x growth in mobile engagement

Improved user ability to complete tasks like finding grants or booking courses

Unified design across 4+ digital assets increasing brand clarity and user trust