How We Improved the User Experience with UX Research and UI Design in a Project Focused on Early Childhood

Transforming a digital platform's experience is always a challenge, especially when it serves critical causes such as public policies for early childhood development. In this project, I led a comprehensive UX Research process and UI redesign to enhance usability, engagement, and accessibility on the platform.

Project Evolution and Client Relationship

This collaboration did not start from scratch. In 2022, we had already worked with the client to improve the platform’s homepage. By 2024, the client decided to take an even bigger step, investing in research, tools, and strategy to transform the platform more broadly.

Our previous work was published on Medium, detailing the homepage improvements. You can check it out here.

This new project involved a dedicated team consisting of Stakeholders, UX Researchers, and UI Designers, lasting six months. It was guided by our initial recommendations from the previous project and strategic priorities aligned with the 2024 municipal elections.

The Challenge

The platform faced several issues that significantly impacted the user experience:

Before vs. After UX Redesign

Before: An overloaded interface with excessive information and colors created cognitive overload.

After: A streamlined interface with a clear hierarchy and intuitive navigation.

Confusing Navigation: Users had difficulty finding key data, such as municipal health and education information.

Limited Content Integration: Data, tools, and recommendations were not clearly connected.

High Bounce Rate: The previous design had a 67.3% bounce rate, with users leaving the site without exploring other pages.

Our goal was to redesign the user experience so that municipal managers, mayoral candidates, and early childhood experts could easily find the information they needed.

Our Approach

We conducted a comprehensive research and redesign process, including:

Research Stages

• Stakeholder Kickoff: Defined expectations and mapped key objectives with the team.

• 17 Qualitative Interviews: We conducted over 15 hours of conversations with policymakers, candidates, and experts from different states, gathering valuable insights.

• Behavior Analysis with Hotjar: Heatmaps and session recordings revealed key pain points and areas of interest.

Usability Testing

• We created realistic scenarios and tasks to assess how users navigated the platform.

• Tested whether participants could successfully find municipal data and access recommendations.

• Gathered behavioral insights, identifying user enthusiasm for the cause, frustrations, and intuitive workarounds they used within the platform.

💡 This testing validated assumptions and gave a voice to user navigation beyond just numbers, clicks, and heatmaps.

Design & Prototyping

Led the UI team in creating interactive prototypes in Figma, addressing key opportunities identified in research.

Menu Redesign: Prioritized accessibility and clarity to improve navigation.

Results

After implementing the new design, we observed significant improvements:

• Higher Engagement: The average session duration increased to 5 minutes and 36 seconds, with concentrated clicks on high-value content.

• Reduced Navigation Issues: The bounce rate dropped to 62.5%, meaning users were now exploring more pages, either through interface improvements or deeper content engagement.

Increased Interaction with Key Content:

• The download button for materials received 1.9k clicks.

• Topics such as "High-Quality Early Childhood Education" saw higher user engagement.

Heatmap Analysis: Revealed stronger engagement in critical content areas, showing how the redesign positively influenced user behavior.

Lessons Learned

This project strengthened my skills in:

• Leadership in UX Research: Managing end-to-end research, from method selection to analysis and reporting.

• Stakeholder Communication: Aligning expectations and translating research findings into actionable design decisions.

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Created detailed reports that served as the foundation for redesign efforts.

• Crisis Management & Asynchronous Work: Navigated project challenges while maintaining high-quality deliverables.

The redesign of the "Primeira Infância Primeiro" platform was a milestone both for the cause it supports and my growth as a designer.

This project demonstrated the power of user-centered research in transforming digital experiences, creating a positive social impact on a highly relevant initiative.

🚀 Looking to optimize your digital product experience? Contact me to discuss how we can apply these best practices to your project.