Petfinder

Search had always been the default path to profile completion — but research revealed it was actively working against us. Users weren't disengaged; they were misaligned, hitting friction at the exact moment they should have been converting. So instead of optimizing search further, I redirected the strategy entirely. Partnering with the research team and running a full UX audit, I remapped the core user flows around a progressive disclosure model — one designed to shorten the path to the "aha" moment and lower the interaction cost of getting there. Rather than gating value behind a completed profile, the new flow let users experience the product's core benefit first, then asked for completion at the moment it made sense to them. I validated the approach through iterative workshops with the team and rounds of moderated and unmoderated user testing, refining the flow against real friction points rather than assumptions. The result addressed three critical failure modes — users who never engaged, users who abandoned early, and interested users blocked by unnecessary steps — while also surfacing and resolving secondary UI issues (like competing visual hierarchy on the home screen) that would have undercut the new approach if left unaddressed. The work reframed the team's understanding of the problem itself: profile completion wasn't a search problem, it was a sequencing problem — and solving it meant giving users a reason to stay before asking them to commit.