Enhancing the ISACA Tech Licensing Platform: A Research-Driven Strategy for User-Centric Growth
💡 Business Challenge: How might we enhance the website to streamline the user journey, clarify membership value, and enhance discoverability to increase engagement and certification enrollments?
📌 Problem Statement: Understanding User Needs to Improve the Tech Licensing Experience
ISACA, a global leader in professional IT certifications, wanted to optimize its online tech licensing platform to better serve users pursuing certifications in cybersecurity, blockchain, and emerging tech fields.
However, research uncovered major gaps in the platform’s usability and business strategy:
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Users struggled to find the right certifications for their career stage—resulting in drop-offs and low engagement.
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Membership offerings were not clearly structured, leading to confusion about value propositions and conversion barriers.
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The site navigation was not intuitive, impacting the ability of users to quickly register and access relevant content.
🔍 Strategic Approach: User Research, Stakeholder Insights & UX Strategy
To solve these challenges, I led a user research and strategy initiative, focusing on:
✅ Stakeholder & Market Research
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Conducted stakeholder interviews to align business goals with user expectations.
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Benchmarked against competing certification platforms (e.g., CompTIA, EC-Council) to identify industry best practices.
✅ Membership & Monetization Strategy
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Identified barriers to membership conversion and proposed a more intuitive pricing and bundling model.
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Recommended personalized membership tiers based on where users were in career path, helping decrease confusion and drive higher conversion rates.
✅ User Research & Behavioral Analysis
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Led in-depth user interviews to understand career motivations, decision-making behaviors, and certification pain points.
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Segmented users based on career stage (e.g., early-career professionals, mid-level specialists, executive learners) to personalize content recommendations.
✅ Cross-Functional Collaboration
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Worked closely with product, marketing, and UX teams to ensure research insights translated into platform improvements.
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Facilitated design thinking workshops to ideate solutions with internal teams.
✅ UX Validation & Tree Testing
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Conducted a tree test to evaluate how users navigated the site and whether they could find relevant certification options easily.
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Identified drop-off points in the journey, leading to navigation improvements and restructuring of the information architecture.
🚀 Execution: Key Enhancements & Solutions
💡 1. Redesigned the website for Certification Discovery
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Introduced a guided onboarding experience that recommended certifications based on career goals.
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Simplified the navigation structure, making it easier to explore available licenses.
💡 2. Optimized Membership Value Proposition
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Created a transparent pricing model that highlighted benefits per membership tier.
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Developed messaging frameworks to clearly communicate why users should upgrade to a paid membership.
💡 3. Implemented Career Driven Personalization
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Proposed recommendations based on career level to emphasize certifications and memberships for easy selection.
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Built dynamic content modules to surface relevant exams & training materials based on user preferences.
💡 4. Validated UX Improvements with Real Users
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Conducted tree testing on redesigned pages, leading to higher engagement and lower bounce rates.
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Iterated on navigation prioritization to highlight most frequent use cases and more targeted towards the users jobs to be done.
📈 Business & User Impact: Measurable Outcomes
🔹 +28% increase in certification enrollments after improving discoverability.
🔹 +35% growth in paid membership conversions due to clearer value communication.
🔹 -40% reduction in drop-off rates after navigation and UX restructuring.
🔹 Higher engagement with career focused recommendations, increasing time spent on site by 25%.
