Recommendation System Redesign
for Small Business Owners

Corporate Work @ GoDaddy

Overview

W + M, Website + Marketing is our website-building tool that helps small business owners create their online presence. I created a strategy and revamped over 70 recommendations on the user dashboard to make them more personalized and engaging. The first recommendation launch resulted in a 7% boost in user engagement, giving the team confidence to roll out the full redesign.

MY ROLE

Lead Designer, Researcher

DURATION

4 weeks

CONTEXT / EXISTING EXPERIENCE

W+M guides small business owners through tailored recommendations

Small business owners juggle multiple responsibilities. Our product supports them by providing research-backed recommendations—actionable steps proven to drive business success.

CONTEXT / PROBLEM

Users are not engaging with recommendation content

Currently, despite placing recommendations in highly visible areas, they receive minimal user interaction.

PROBLEM / STATEMENT

RESEARCH / CARD SORTING

Uncovering business owners’ diverse priorities based on their business stage

To identify the most relevant recommendations for users, I conducted a card-sorting study with 10 participants. The findings revealed that business needs vary significantly:

New businesses prioritize foundational tasks like setting up a business email.
Established businesses focus on expanding through new sales channels.

RESEARCH / AUDIT

Inconsistent recommendation design across the system

Recommendations appear across various touch points—from the dashboard to individual pages—yet lack visual consistency in layout, imagery, and illustration styles.

DESIGN / GOALS

Creating a tailored, unified, and digestible recommendation system

DESIGN / ANATOMY

Standardizing the structure of recommendation cards

I defined a consistent card structure, incorporating tags for categorization to improve clarity and organization.

DESIGN / VARIATION

Flexible recommendation formats to meet different needs

To accommodate various use cases, I designed multiple card formats, including:

Simplified cards – No descriptions or illustrations for quick actions.
Insights cards – Focused on business metrics.
Enhanced cards – Visually prominent to highlight key actions.
Carousel cards – Scrollable to showcase multiple items.

DESIGN / ILLUSTRATION

Establishing illustration guidelines for visual consistency

I refined the illustration style to ensure uniformity, readability, and seamless integration with the surrounding interface.

THE SOLUTION

A tailored, unified, and digestible recommendation system

Highlighting the most important step with the enhanced card

A visually prominent first recommendation card ensures that users immediately recognize the most critical next step.

Tailored recommendations based on business stage

After selecting their business stage, users receive a curated feed of recommendations aligned with their specific needs.

Learning a user’s business stage through a question card

For future vision, I designed a brand-new feature to gather user information and improve recommendations. It gained attention from my Design VP and was incorporated into GoDaddy’s 5-year strategy.

🔒 This work hasn’t launched yet! Email me for access.

THE OUTCOME

Increased dashboard engagement

To build team confidence, I structured the design into phases. The first card experiment resulted in a 7% increase in dashboard engagement, validating the approach and paving the way for a full rollout.

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EDUCATION

Carnegie Mellon University
M.S. Design for Interactions 2025

University of Washington
B.S. Human-Centered Design & Engineering 2020

EXPERIENCES

Coinbase
Graduate Design Intern 2024

GoDaddy
UX Designer 2020 — 2023
UX Design Intern 2020

Wunderman Thompson
UX Design Intern 2019

AWARDS

MUSE Creative Awards
Gold Winner, 2x Silver Winner

NY Product Design Awards
Silver Winner

Core77 Design Awards
Student Notable in Interaction

Recommendation System Redesign for Small Business Owners