[Wayfair] Designing an employee experience people actually want to use.
[Knoll] Turning a showroom-driven business into an eCommerce engine.
1
month to
design and
test
17k
target users (Wayfair employees)
10k
users within one month of launching
Internal mobility is now a leading differentiator for Wayfair's employer brand. I designed the platform and system that opened this door.
Leadership discovered that the Net Promoter Score (NPS) for internal mobility participants was 28% higher than those who remain on the same team.
As the lead Content Strategist & Designer, it was my job to design a tool that would improve employee retention and satisfaction by simplifying the process of transitioning to a new team at Wayfair.
The original task was to design a platform that would replace the Greenhouse internal job board. But user research revealed that the process, not the tool, was the bigger opportunity. With only one month to design a careers site from scratch, I made it my new goal to design on-screen user flows alongside behind-the-scenes workflows that would aim to reduce confusion and uncertainty around applying for a new internal role.
When the Product Manager needed help rolling out this tool, I also designed the communication plan and product marketing strategy that created a new standard for internal product launches.
We had only one month to build a new internal careers site and one month to launch it to 17k+ employees.
Every step of the work was user-tested and user-informed.
First, I gave it a name (CareerHub) to follow the nomenclature of the InfoHub intranet.
Then I got to work gathering as many quantitative and qualitative insights as possible –
whiteboard workshops, user interviews, employee surveys, competitor research, card sorting exercises, user flows, journey mapping, red-light green-light rapid prototyping exercises, contextual inquiry, and usability tests.
With such a tight turnaround time, I didn't cut any research corners. I needed all this data to uncover –
1. Key themes
2. Feature prioritization
3. Aligning information architecture with mental models
4. Gaps in the recruiting and hiring process
5. Design must-haves against technical feasibility
These insights and data unlocked a new and unexpected north star vision: to reduce the stress and uncertainty surrounding internal mobility.
User research revealed that fear of the unknown was the biggest barrier to participating in internal career moves. It was my job to reduce this fear.
Every piece of content I designed designed for approachability through personalization, conversational UX writing, and inspirational content.
- "Did you know" facts and success stories highlighting the impact of internal mobility
- Custom email alerts for jobs in your chosen location and team
- Coffee chat sign-up form to network with new teams
- Infographics with timelines and next steps clearly defined
- FAQs and 101 articles (general and team-specific)
- Context-setting icons to add visual interest
- A personalized, conversational greeting upon logging into the portal
A product is only as seamless as the operations behind it.
As a systems thinker, I focus on connecting what you see on-screen with what's happening behind-the-scenes. The workflows and user flows always need to be designed in tandem.
I wanted to reduce stress around internal mobility, not only for the internal job applicants, but also for the teams who were in charge of making internal moves happen. So I created a shared language that could be used across applicants, recruiters, and hiring managers to finally get on the same page about a confusing process.
To promote consistency and clarity across teams, I delivered concise guidance through infographics, FAQs, and 101 articles, as well as segmented product launch announcements tailored to each team’s specific goals.
"CareerHub offers a seamless job search experience for employees seeking a new internal role."
- Niraj Shah, CEO, Wayfair
There's a reason product adoption was so high.
Through earning trust from my product and engineering partners, I was put in charge of the CareerHub product marketing strategy for our audience of 17k+ global employees. Within one month of launching, we saw 10k+ users engaging with the site. The Talent team ended up turning this into a framework for all product launches going froward.
Words from my Wayfair peers:
“We need your brain on all our key projects.” "Brittany was an absolute delight to work on the CareerHub roll-out strategy. She was instrumental in coming up with the communication plan that was the most thoughtful I've personally seen in any new platform roll out. She came up with great ideas and consistently made herself available to craft communications, hone messaging and provide feedback." "Brittany is an invaluable asset to the team. As someone who often has to pull together stakeholders moving in different directions, I am hugely appreciative of the work she did at the time of the CareerHub launch. It was absolutely outstanding and critical to the success of the product." "Your peer feedback included terms such as outstanding, and exceptional, and fantastic, masterful, and absolute delight. These aren't platitudes - they are clear evidence of the high regard by which your peers hold you." "I rely on her to help me see around corners in other parts of the company and avoid conflicting or redundant work." “I just keep hearing from product managers about how much you are helping them - running miro sessions, helping them with roadmaps, helping them improve projects. Thank you!” "Many teams often look to her for support, and she is quick to provide it, often relaying technical information in an easy to digest format that empowers non-technical stakeholders to move forward." "I want to recognize how much I appreciate Britt's facilitation and partnership style. She positions herself as a thought partner in a way that empowers you to make your own decisions while also knowing that you can talk to her any time about ideas or concerns when it comes to bringing your idea to life."
[Wayfair] The impact:
Content changes behavior. Design shapes decisions. Internal experiences deserve consumer-grade quality.
[Knoll] Physical-to-digital retail evolution.
50k
UX
investment
398%
increase in
online upholstery
revenue
32%
increase in
web traffic
When the product is texture, color, and materiality, the screen has to earn trust.
KnollTextiles had been one of the most respected names in modern design since 1947. They had something the web couldn't replicate: trust.
Designers walked into showrooms, touched the fabrics, compared colors, talked to sales representatives, and built confidence before making a purchase.
Online, that experience fell apart. My job was to turn a showroom-driven business into a scalable digital commerce engine.
Search was limited. Product discovery was fragmented. Navigation between KnollTextiles and the parent Knoll furniture brand was confusing.
eCommerce was generating revenue, but nowhere near what it could. I saw the gap, built the business case, and convinced the President and Creative Director to invest $50,000 in a full site redesign.
Then I enrolled in General Assembly's UX Design program so I could lead the work myself — conducting user interviews and usability tests, mapping journeys, designing user flows, prototyping new experiences, restructuring navigation, and building an advanced search architecture alongside engineers and freelancers.
The goal was to make the digital experience behave more like the showroom: move from inspiration to exploration to trust to purchase.
The biggest UX challenge was search.
KnollTextiles had hundreds of SKUs across color families, material types, performance specifications, and designer collections.
The existing search returned too much with too little refinement. A designer might know exactly what they needed — a specific color family, substrate, performance rating, or designer — but the site didn't give them a way to combine those signals.
I designed a new discovery architecture around the way designers actually shop. Advanced filtering allowed users to narrow the inventory by the attributes that mattered most to their project.
Then I connected the new product architecture back to the new digital storytelling system. A designer could move from an editorial story about a collection directly into the products behind it without losing the thread.
Introducing a seamless cross-brand navigation system connecting KnollTextiles and Knoll furniture for the first time.
I also redesigned the nested navigation between KnollTextiles and Knoll. The two brands belonged to the same ecosystem but operated like separate destinations. The experience needed to make that relationship legible without making either brand feel diminished.
398% increase in upholstery eCommerce revenue year-over-year.
150% increase in sitewide eCommerce revenue.
32% increase in web traffic.
$50k investment secured and led end-to-end.