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Summary
Mission
ShipStation faced a critical challenge: new users were abandoning onboarding before shipping their first package. High friction during setup, such as configuring shipping preferences, understanding automations, and navigating unclear flows, led to support tickets piling up and activation rates lagging.
My Contributions
As Senior Product Designer, I led a 10‑month initiative to reimagine onboarding with two clear goals:
- Simplify the user experience to drive first‑shipment success.
- Reduce operational overhead by lowering support touch points.
I partnered across product, engineering, research, and customer success, while also collaborating with other designers to ideate, critique, and refine our approach. This project combined user research, data analysis, and iterative testing to ensure each design decision was both user‑centered and business‑aligned.
Impact
- Onboarding completion rate improved 31%
- Support tickets decreased by over 40%
- 57% of new users successfully purchased a label within the first week.
Design Process
Discovery
I began by analyzing analytics and funnel data to pinpoint where new users were dropping off. This revealed:
- 65% of users abandoned onboarding before completing setup.
- Most friction occurred in rate browsing and shipping preference configuration.
- Support tickets frequently cited confusing automations and unclear next steps.
I paired this data with qualitative research, including:
- 10 user interviews and usability tests to observe real-world friction
- Support ticket analysis to categorize top pain points
- Competitor benchmarking to identify proven patterns in SaaS onboarding
These insights informed a design strategy focused on reducing cognitive load, clarifying guidance, and getting users to their first shipment as quickly as possible.
Defining the Structure
With our research and analytics in hand, I started by mapping out the new user journey. Drop-off data and interview insights revealed where users were getting stuck, especially during rate browsing and shipping preference configuration.
I created detailed user flows for different user types, ensuring each path was simple, guided, and tailored to their needs. These flows helped align the product, engineering, and customer success teams on exactly how new users would progress toward their first successful shipment, and served as a blueprint for wireframes and later UI design.
Wireframes
Next, I moved into low-fidelity wireframing to explore layout and interaction concepts without the distraction of visual design.
The wireframes focused on:
- Step‑by‑step guided onboarding to reduce cognitive load
- Progress indicators to give users a sense of accomplishment
- Smart defaults and simplified inputs to shorten setup time
These early explorations allowed quick iteration and cross-team collaboration, with feedback from designers, engineers, and stakeholders shaping the final flow. This phase established a strong structural foundation for our onboarding experience.
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UI Design
Once the flows and wireframes were validated, I translated them into high‑fidelity UI designs that were polished, intuitive, and aligned with ShipStation’s brand guidelines.
Every design decision was backed by research or testing:
- Clean visual hierarchy and simplified inputs addressed user confusion from previous flows
- Guided rate browsing and contextual tooltips reduced support reliance
- Progressive disclosure kept first-time setup approachable, while advanced users still had the flexibility to explore deeper options
Throughout this phase, I collaborated with other designers during critiques and workshops, ensuring that the final UI balanced user needs with business goals. Interactive Figma prototypes were then tested with real users, allowing us to refine copy, inputs, and microinteractions before handing off to engineering.
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Rate Browser Redesign
Rate browsing, a critical feature for conversion, was initially overloaded with features and inputs, leading to confusion and flow abandonment.
My approach was grounded in user-centered design and external validation:
- Simplified input requirements to only what’s necessary to generate a rate (user-tested for comprehension)
- Clear, prioritized rate display modeled after proven competitor patterns
- Expandable advanced options for power users, keeping the primary path frictionless
This decision to prioritize simplicity over feature density was backed by analytics showing abandonment in the previous complex flow and user test results confirming higher completion with fewer visible options.
The redesign not only improved onboarding clarity but also set a scalable pattern for other input-heavy flows, such as order configuration and single-label creation for free users.
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Testing
I created interactive prototypes in Figma and conducted usability testing with 15 new users. Key insights from these sessions directly shaped the final solution:
- Progressive disclosure increased confidence by breaking onboarding into digestible steps
- Reducing steps from 8 to 5 improved flow completion without removing critical functionality
- Simplified copy and inline error prevention reduced support dependency
- Smart defaults and contextual tooltips helped non-technical users navigate integrations
This data-driven iteration cycle ensured that every design decision was validated before development.
Handoff
Once designs were finalized, I introduced a Figma-to-development handoff process to improve efficiency and minimize ambiguity for engineers. I also conducted QA testing, focusing on interactive states, error handling, and edge cases to protect the user experience.
Post-launch, I collaborated with Customer Success to gather feedback through surveys and support analysis. This informed a series of A/B tests that optimized time-to-first-label and activation rates, aligning design improvements with measurable business outcomes.
Impact
The redesigned onboarding dramatically simplified the new user experience, enabling users to complete setup confidently and ship faster while reducing the support burden.
This project demonstrates my strengths as a senior product designer:
- Leading complex, cross-functional projects from discovery to delivery
- Making data-informed design decisions that balance user and business needs
- Fostering collaboration and mentoring other designers through critiques and workshops
- Delivering scalable design systems and patterns that improve the product holistically
Ultimately, this case study highlights strategic design thinking, end-to-end ownership, and the ability to turn complex problems into intuitive experiences that drive real business impact.
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