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Salesforce Trailhead Integration

Bringing Trailhead, Salesforce's learning platform, into salesforce.com.

Trailhead is where people get hands-on and learn Salesforce. Our goal was to bring it into the corporate marketing site to improve free trials and first-time conversion.

Over 4 months, our team of three UX design interns worked with the Salesforce Digital Experience Team from research to A/B testing.

Timeline

Aug – Dec 2022

Team

3 UX interns, Salesforce DX Team

Role

Roadmap, research, wireframes, testing

Process

A roadmap from understand to refine.

Understanding what already exists

  1. 1Reviewed previous user interview data from Salesforce.
  2. 2Documented every Trailhead-related feature on salesforce.com and Trailhead.

Competitor analysis with two goals

  1. 1Find common web conventions for free trials across both related and unrelated companies.
  2. 2Use those conventions to judge where Salesforce could improve.

User personas

Who we're designing for.

Affinity diagramming

Grouping findings to reveal patterns.

We clustered related research findings to spot recurring patterns and decide where to go next.

Concept hypothesis

The least effort, the greatest positive impact.

7

hypothesis statements, each scored with Salesforce using prioritization metrics

Define

Highlighting certifications, trailmixes, and community on salesforce.com will increase click-through.

Users need proof of learning, self-paced learning, and learning support.

salesforce.com didn't clearly communicate these, which led to a lower click-through rate.

Prototype

Mid-fidelity wireframes of a key flow.

We tested the wireframes with a novice user to check that the flow made sense and catch usability issues before high fidelity.

User testing

A/B testing the new design against the current experience.

6

participants with no Salesforce knowledge, in moderated in-person and remote sessions

Goals

  1. 1Understand Trailhead's three core offerings: skills, certifications, and community.
  2. 2Actively engage with the content.
  3. 3Show interest in visiting Trailhead.com.

We asked

  1. 1Would you stop at this section or scroll past it, and why?
  2. 2What's your first impression, and what do you think Trailhead is?
  3. 3Is anything confusing? How understandable is it, from 1 to 5?
  4. 4Which card would you click, and how interested are you in exploring Trailhead?

Impact: A/B testing

Participants found a CRM for a retail business and started a free trial.

We measured how confident they felt choosing the right product (1–10) and how long the task took.

Recommendations to improve the free trial

  1. 1Personalized guidance: a guided selling flow that matches users with the right products for their trial.
  2. 2Identify user mental models: learn how users find the right product, building confidence and subscriptions.
  3. 3Revamp Trailhead guidance: refresh “Salesforce 360” guided selling and give it more visibility, possibly on the homepage.

Read more

The project on LinkedIn ↗→