Main Navigation Redesign
Replaced a broken tab nav on a federal platform. Card sorting, 22 access levels, one clean dropdown.
The navigation had outgrown itself.
The platform's tab-based navigation had outgrown itself. Multiple rows of tabs consumed a significant portion of every screen. With 22 access levels and features still being added, and with no logical hierarchy, no room to grow, and no clear path for users to find what they needed.
The platform serves supervisors, administrators, and case workers. Each with different workflows. All navigating the same broken structure.
Three things were failing at once
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01
Tabs misused as global navigation. They're designed for content switching, not system-wide wayfinding.
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02
No hierarchy. Every item treated as equal regardless of importance or frequency.
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03
No room to scale. Every new feature made the problem worse.
What I owned
The tabs never stood a chance.-
The UX team identified and framed the navigation problem proactively before it was on the roadmap
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Ran an open card sort with 16 participants, mapped the results manually, and defined the final labeling structure
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Audited all 22 access levels by logging into each one to map every role's view
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Analyzed screen size and device data with another designer to inform responsive behavior
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Built responsive prototypes and contributed to design system alignment
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Ran remote usability testing with 12 users pre-launch
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Facilitated live beta sessions and managed the real-time feedback channel during pilot rollout
The data pointed directly to the solution.
I ran the card sort with 16 participants, all real platform users. After the sessions I mapped the results manually, grouping and regrouping until the categories emerged from the data rather than from assumptions.
What came back was surprising in a few ways.
Most users only saw a fraction of the navigation. Access level restrictions meant the majority of participants had never encountered many of the items they were asked to sort.
Even power users relied on the same few items. The full navigation was offering far more than anyone actually needed daily.
But the data also gave us clear signals. Categories like Tasks and Management emerged organically. When user language was ambiguous I iterated on labels and validated with subject matter experts before finalizing.
A personalization opportunity surfaced too. Users gravitated toward the same items regardless of access level. A pinning feature to let users surface their most used items was identified and designed. It was descoped due to development constraints but it's documented and on the roadmap.
Alongside the card sort, we ran two additional investigations.
Analyzed screen sizes and device types with another designer. The range of environments, from ultra-wide monitors to laptops, directly shaped the responsive behavior of the new navigation.
Logged into all 22 access levels to map every role's view. Federal constraints meant no direct user access. The audit took patience. But it meant the final architecture accounted for every permission state across the platform.
Three calls that shaped the outcome.
Dropdown over tabs
Tabs are a component designed for content switching. The platform had repurposed them as global navigation. We replaced them with a dropdown menu organized into clearly labeled groups, informed directly by the card sort results. With the right labels and a scalable structure, the navigation can grow with the business without needing to be rebuilt.
The most frequently used categories, Tasks and Management, stayed visible at the top level for quick access. Everything else lives inside the dropdown with a logical home. The familiar tab row, still present to show the open links, is capped at one line with a More dropdown handling the overflow.
UX improvements: reduced cognitive load, scalable structure, familiar interaction patterns
UI improvements: smaller logo, consolidated icons, dropdown menu
Research-informed labeling over assumed labels
Every category name in the new navigation came from the card sort data. Not from internal assumptions, not from what the system called things. It's from how users actually referred to features.
Where user language was ambiguous, I iterated and validated with subject matter experts. The labels feel intuitive because they came from the people using the platform every day.
A pilot rollout over a full launch
This was the first project on the platform to launch with a staged rollout. We proposed starting with 5 locations before expanding platform-wide. For a mission-critical federal system that wasn't the default. It was a deliberate choice to protect quality.
A dedicated Teams channel was created for beta participants, the UX team, and the development team to surface bugs in real time as the rollout expanded. Issues were resolved before wider release. It wasn't just a risk mitigation strategy. It was a quality strategy.
15k+ users switched. The silence was deafening.
users transitioned to the new navigation
initial opt-out rate — gone by end of rollout
users remained on the old navigation
The response was clear and sustained. An initial 7% opt-out rate effectively disappeared over time. By the end of the rollout only 2 users remained on the old navigation.
Then something unexpected happened. Consolidating the header and grouping the icons gave everything more visual breathing room. Users started noticing features that had always been there.
"Is the notification new? I didn't know it was there."
Beta participant, pilot rollout
In the end, nobody complained about the navigation because it felt like it had always been that way. That's invisible design. That's the goal.