Global Navigation + Menu Redesign NationalGeographic.com
The Opportunity
Improve Wayfinding and Content Discovery
The global navigation and menu are key way-finding tools for users, but the previous version failed to guide them to NatGeo.com’s vast content library, resulting in low user engagement and limited content accessibility.
SEO Improvements
We aimed to boost SEO by enhancing content visibility, improving internal linking, and reducing orphaned pages to increase crawl frequency, speed up indexation, and improve article placement in top stories.
Drive Conversion
Leverage the navigation to drive revenue by highlighting subscription benefits and upsell opportunities.
My Role
As lead product manager, I drove the project from end to end—partnering with design, engineering, PMO, and QA, while championing the initiative with business and leadership stakeholders. I conducted stakeholder interviews to align on business needs, collaborated with design on user testing, information architecture models and prototypes, defined the program scope and phased rollout, and secured stakeholder buy-in. I wrote and refined requirements with engineering, coordinated timelines with PMO, and ensured on-time delivery. Additionally, I led training sessions for content creators and championed the new features across the broader organization.
The Outcome
Improved Wayfinding and Content Discovery
The redesign led to a nearly 3× increase in navigation click-through rate, a 12% boost in time spent on site among users who interacted with the navigation, and a 9× expansion in the number of content categories surfaced with a single click. Click-through rates to editorial topics increased by up to 7× compared to the previous navigation.
The addition of configurability allows editorial and marketing teams to control and highlight specific initiatives and Nat Geo content on Disney+.
SEO Improvements
Our SEO skyrocketed instantly, with our total SEO score increasing by 4x, and the number of crawlable homepage links doubling.
*This is a recent launch; additional metrics to come
Desktop
Mobile
Key Features
Redesigned primary navigation containing eight strategically-chosen primary categories
Megamenu dropdown containing:
Secondary topics
Dynamically populated latest stories
Configurable right-hand promotional module to showcase content and conversion opportunities
Configurable section to highlight Nat Geo series and specials
User profile panel to promote benefits and upsell opportunities
New section in back-end CMS tool for content creators to manage configurable sections
Inline search
The Process Explained
How Did We Get Here?
The global navigation hadn’t been updated in over seven years and featured only five content topics, hidden behind an expandable menu. It didn’t reflect the breadth of Nat Geo’s content, making it difficult for users to navigate and discover what they were looking for. The desktop and mobile navs were nearly identical, and the design was clearly desktop-first, which made the mobile experience even more challenging. We also identified that a more robust, well-linked navigation could deliver significant SEO improvements—a growing priority.
This initiative aligned directly with one of our core objectives for the year: enhancing wayfinding and content discovery across the site.
While we had already secured stakeholder buy-in for a global navigation redesign as part of the annual roadmap, the specific direction and strategy still needed to be developed and approved.
Previous navigation on desktop
Discovery Phase
We needed to conduct an exhaustive review to understand how users interacted with our current navigation, gather internal feedback on what would make it more useful and powerful from both a content strategy and functionality perspective, and explore broader navigation trends across the market. We approached this through three key methods:
Analytics Gathering – We analyzed how often the navigation was used, which buttons and topics were most commonly selected, what led to bounce rates after a nav interaction, and how behavior differed between desktop and mobile users.
Stakeholder Interviews – I conducted seven interviews with 16 stakeholders, ranging from customer care (who handle user feedback) to editorial, marketing, ad sales, and leadership. Drawing on my journalism background, I asked questions that uncovered the deeper "why" behind the navigation redesign and surfaced common themes. A few insights stood out: 100% of stakeholders agreed the navigation was too reductive. There was a clear need for content teams to control parts of the nav to use it as a promotional tool. We also heard consistent frustration with the search experience—the algorithm lacked logic, and key features like filtering and sorting were missing.
Competitive Analysis – The product design team led a competitive audit that surfaced several patterns. Some of the takeaways included: expanded menus were standard, visuals within navigation can be a powerful tool, and the most user-friendly experiences were optimized for mobile.
Determining Phases + Gaining Stakeholder Buy-In
After synthesizing all of the information from the discovery phase, I proposed a phased approach:
Phase 1 - Search Page Improvements: Implement quick, low-resource improvements—revamped algorithm, sorting/filtering, and search suggestions—while continuing to lead cross-functional work on the larger navigation redesign. This agile approach allowed us to move quickly, ship iteratively, and gather data to inform future decisions.
See more about the search page improvements project here.
Phase 2 - Global Navigation Redesign: A larger-scale effort requiring more time to build designs from the ground up, conduct user testing, and support a longer development and QA timeline.
Next, I brought the proposal to stakeholders. I led a presentation that outlined the key insights from discovery and highlighted the common themes that shaped our phased strategy. The result? Full stakeholder sign-off on the approach.
Information Architecture Model
In collaboration with product design, we developed an information architecture (IA) model to define the relationships between content categories in the new navigation—and how those categories should nest within one another. We began with three distinct IA models, each with a different approach to organizing the content, and ultimately refined our direction to the version that made the most sense both categorically and strategically.
We selected the topics to highlight in the navigation based on a combination of:
Analytics: Topics users were already highly engaged with or that showed strong upward trends, along with those generating high search volume.
Editorial Input: Topics the content teams were actively focusing on or planning to invest in.
Business Input: High-priority initiatives and key revenue-driving topics.
User Research Testing
Given the scale of this high-visibility overhaul, it was critical to validate the new navigation with users to ensure our approach resonated. Using high-fidelity prototypes, we conducted qualitative testing, asking users to complete tasks ranging from locating specific topics and finding subscription benefits. We tested both logged-in and logged-out states, across subscribers and non-subscribers.
A few key insights emerged:
Unclear Section Naming: The name of one particular section was confusing, and users didn’t understand its purpose. We addressed this by testing a clearer name and adding a descriptive subline to provide context.
Excessive Scrolling on Mobile: Users had to scroll too much in the mobile menu. We resolved this by refining the animations and layout so that each topic would snap to the top of the viewport when expanded.
Example section of an IA model draft
UI adjustment to mobile menu expansions
Scope Locked, Requirements Set, Build Ready
Feeling confident in our latest designs, I locked in scope with stakeholders and simultaneously refined and prioritized dozens of tickets with engineering—spanning four teams: front end, back-end CMS tools, platform, and analytics. Using these tickets and resourcing info, we developed an estimated timeline for the build.
While engineering got to work, here’s a sample of what I was managing (in addition to supporting the dev teams with any questions along the way):
Defining key milestones and organizing tasks into milestone buckets to track progress
Updating and expanding taxonomy and metadata to align with the new topic categories
Collaborating with content teams to create new topic pages, powered by dynamic queries
Ensuring new sections defaulted to the appropriate paywall state
Partnering with analytics to make sure all new components were trackable for performance insights
Finalizing KPIs and mapping them to broader OKRs
Creating a reference manual and leading training sessions on the new CMS features
Holding regular stakeholder check-ins to maintain transparency and momentum
Launch + Iterate
Following thorough QA testing, we were ready to launch—and did so two weeks ahead of our original projections. The launch went smoothly, and we’ve hit or exceeded nearly all of our KPIs. For the areas that underperformed, we’re iterating and working to reach our goals.
This was the most rewarding program I’ve led as a product manager. I thoroughly enjoyed sorting through the ambiguity to create a clear strategy, outline the necessary steps, and guide our team to the finish line. I am honored to have led this high-visibility, deeply important, and complex program.
Before & After
Before: Desktop
After: Desktop
Before: Mobile
Before: User Settings
After: Mobile
After: User Profile Panel