Redesigning Xbox Support for a New Generation

Xbox

My first project at Xbox was to redesign the Support section for the launch of Xbox One. In addition to needing to support the new console, the site suffered from numerous usability and taxonomy issues. These issues, documented in a series of brutal usability studies, were diminishing users’ ability to self help. This drives call volume, which costs the company in dollars and the user in time.

As you can see from the top image on this page, there was a wall of text links, with no clear path to the articles the user actually needs to see. The redesigned home asks a very simple question: what do you need help with? And allowing the user to select the top-level system or account feature they’re having difficulty with.

In the deeper pages, I introduced a left nav for lateral and upward movement. This replaced a confusing bread crumbing system that didn’t even improve SEO, which I’m told was its intended function. On a site where over sixty percent of traffic comes from search, orienting the user is paramount.

Additionally, localization was always a challenge on Xbox.com projects. Everything I designed had to scale for locales that may not have both or either console, and languages that can double string lengths.

UX: Jon Anderson   Visual Design: Jillian Poppe