Work: UX strategy, access-state modelling, interaction design, wireframes, user testing, A/B testing, design system integration

Role: Lead UX designer

Product: ScienceDirect

Timeline: 2023-2024

Overview

ScienceDirect serves millions of researchers globally, but access is rarely simple. A user might be recognised through an institution, signed in personally, coming through IP access, arriving from a remote access flow, or trying to purchase a single article.

I led the redesign of the global header and access experience so users could understand three things quickly:

• Whether they could access the content
• Which institution they were connected to
• What action to take next

The work turned the header from a mostly static navigation pattern into a contextual access layer that could scale across ScienceDirect.

Impact

• 68% increase in primary conversion flows
• 45% increase in alternative access paths
• 92% increase in institution-authenticated "blue user" conversion
• Approx. EUR 300K annual revenue impact
• 64.3% task success rate for a key access scenario in usability testing

The redesigned header contributed to a strong increase in institution-authenticated conversion after rollout.

Problem statement

The previous header did not clearly explain the user's access context. Important access information was hidden behind a house icon, and the main actions pushed users toward generic sign-in flows even when a more relevant institutional route existed.