UX Research · Information Architecture · Salesforce
Salesforce Agentforce Help Portal Navigation
A data-driven, 4-phase navigation redesign for one of the most visited help portals in enterprise software. Grounded in real user behavior across 56.5 million sessions and competitive research across 7 platforms.
FINAL PROTOTYPE / Authenticated and unauthenticated nav states across 10 scenarios
The Salesforce Help Portal navigation had grown organically over time, creating redundancy, inconsistency, and friction across user types. Content and tools were intermixed in ways that increased cognitive load. Navigation pathways varied significantly depending on whether a user was logged in or not. Nobody could agree on what Help vs Support even meant.
UX Designer working alongside a design director across all 4 phases of the engagement.
- Led competitive and landscape analysis across 7 platforms including Zendesk, Freshdesk, Atlassian, Microsoft Learn, and Trailhead
- Designed and annotated 8 distinct navigation variations with goals, tradeoffs, and rationale for each
- Produced high fidelity prototypes covering authenticated and unauthenticated states across 10 nav scenarios
- Collaborated with the analytics team to ground every recommendation in real user behavior data
PHASE 2 / SEO AND ANALYTICS REVIEW
Key Findings
- Users arrive with clear intent. The nav needed to reflect real user behavior, not a content management taxonomy
- 91% of organic traffic lands directly on article pages, not the homepage. Navigation changes could be made without any SEO risk
- Ask Agentforce grew +1,636.6% YoY, signaling a shift toward AI-assisted support the navigation needed to accommodate
- No competitor centralized MFA and login help effectively. Salesforce had a clear opportunity to lead
- Authenticated and unauthenticated users behave completely differently. The nav needed to serve both states distinctly
The project ran in 4 structured phases, each building directly on the last.
- Phase 1 / Navigation Audit — Documented existing pain points, redundancies, and usability issues across customer entitlements to establish a clear baseline
- Phase 2 / SEO and Analytics Review — Analyzed 56.5M sessions to understand how users actually navigate, search, and engage. My Cases alone accounts for 56% of all navigation interactions. Ask Agentforce usage grew +1,636.6% YoY
- Phase 3 / Competitive and Landscape Analysis — Evaluated 3 direct competitors and 4 Salesforce-owned platforms across navigation structure, documentation hierarchy, MFA placement, search behavior, and support models
- Phase 4 / Prototyping and Final Sitemap — Used research findings to prototype 8 navigation variations and deliver a final recommended sitemap with clear rationale for each decision
PHASE 3 / LANDSCAPE and COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
What Happened Next
The navigation recommendations directly sparked a new engagement. Salesforce commissioned a follow-on project focused on the homepage and MFA help flow, two of the highest-traffic and highest-friction areas identified in our research. The directional concepts we developed became the brief for that work.
- Delivered a final recommended navigation system grounded in analytics, competitive research, and prototyping
- Produced 8 annotated nav variations with data-backed rationale for each
- Recommendations directly led to 3 additional Salesforce work streams including a data consulting retainer, landing page improvements, and ongoing scenario support
VARIATION 4 / Role First Navigation
PHASE 4 / FINAL RECOMMENDATION and Summary
