partnerworld portal
IBM
building the partnerworld site experience
the challenge
Partners needed a clear path to useful resources and available benefits that inspired them to join
Navigating to relevant resources should be easy for partners. PartnerWorld needed to communicate more clearly what resources and benefits were available to partners to streamline their online experience and support their business growth.
Streamlining navigation to minimize search
How can you tell if a program’s website is hard to navigate? Find out how often users are using the search function to find what they need — the more they do, the clearer it is that your navigation isn’t intuitive enough. By redesigning the PartnerWorld UX to focus on navigation efficacy, users can more easily locate tools, resources, and offerings they need while still allowing for personalization by partner type, tier, region, etc.
Creating a seamless user experience that brings lasting engagement
Usability friction was causing higher abandonment rates, prolonging the ROI of PartnerWorld for IBM. Identifying usability problems and removing roadblocks helped Partners complete onboarding faster. They were able to take advantage of selling and networking tools in less time, accelerating ROI for both Partners and IBM.
Showing Partners what to do, where to go, and how to get there
Consistency is as crucial as clarity. A lack of persistent and well-organized menu systems left Business Partners without a true understanding of site structure and hierarchy. Without an easy-to-navigate high-level partner site menu, Business Partners were wasting valuable time searching instead of networking or reselling products and services. Eliminating obstacles for users allows them to fulfill their partnership roles by making valuable information and resources appear in persistent, consistently well-organized menus on every page, site-wide.
/ 01 WORKSHOP
human-centered design thinking
Beginning with a specialized, in-person workshop with IBM’s PartnerWorld team, we compared other competitive programs, defined content pillars, and created an actionable roadmap for the project.
The workshop revealed the need to rethink, redesign and rewrite navigation for over 175,000 unique pages to build a connected brand experience that gives Business Partners easy access to the true value of PartnerWorld.
Over the course of our five-year partnership, the work expanded and evolved to include personalized incentives, public-facing web pages, email campaigns, marketing materials, benefits packages, and member-centric tools.
/ 02 ROADMAP
Define PartnerWorld’s mission statement — the brand’s core story and differentiators — by aligning IBM’s cross-functional PartnerWorld team
Identify core partner audience users, understand their needs and recognize their fears to determine how PartnerWorld should support them
Identify how audiences interact with the program at different relationship stages and information levels
Establish five content pillars to support the ParterWorld narrative and align it to business and audience/user needs
Align PartnerWorld leadership to identify and reduce resourcing gaps to deliver on the project
"In all my years, I've not been part of such a productive workshop as this."
– IBM PartnerWorld Leadership
the approach
To gain a better understanding of Business Partner needs, Somnio led in-person Business Partner interviews and card-sorting exercises at the PartnerWorld Leadership Conference. We also conducted a design thinking workshop with IBM stakeholders and subject matter experts, surveyed users, analyzed user behavior through click data, heatmaps and user recordings (via online usage tools such as Coremetrics and Hotjar), completed a competitor analysis and explored usability best practices for large-scale websites.
Utilized heat mapping to maximize
the UX for partners
User journey mapping
IA
annotated wireframes
a robust
end-to-end partner portal experience
/ 03 THE OUTCOME
Based on partner usage patterns, strategic pages were identified and redesigned to provide a consistent brand experience:
Public microsite creation – 11 pages designed
Welcome home page
Program benefit pages
Target audience pages for System Integrators, Resellers, and ISVs
Based on competitive research and SEO best practices, a public microsite was created to promote partnering with IBM, as well as to market existing partners and their solutions to potential clients
Member portal – 30+ gated pages redesigned
Critical program-level pages redesigned
Improved overall site taxonomy
Reduced and refined unique pages from 175,000 to 50,000
A stylized style guide
Somnio concepted, designed and developed a digital style and pattern guide for the IBM PartnerWorld digital experience. The guide gives internal content creators and designers direction on how to correctly represent the PartnerWorld brand.
The outcome was improved consistency between the public and member experiences and beyond other PartnerWorld tools and communication.