How to reflect on legal changes from the perspective of a tech magazine
Background
This project focused on redesigning a successful tech platform. The original brand specialized in reviewing Chinese products and operated on an affiliate model, but due to new EU regulations, the market began to shrink. The team decided to pivot toward European and American tech companies and startups, leading to the creation of Reflekt.hu, a modern online tech magazine.
While the user persona remained the same, the new platform needed to feel more professional, appealing to both readers and advertisers, while maintaining community engagement and affiliate-based monetization.
My role covered the entire end-to-end process, from UX research and persona development to information architecture and UI design, ensuring Reflekt not only evolved in content but also in usability and visual identity.
Research
To ensure that the redesign was grounded in real user needs and business goals, I applied a combination of qualitativeand quantitative research methods. This mixed approach helped us uncover user behaviors, identify pain points, and validate design decisions.
Branding Sprint
A collaborative workshop with the editorial team to align on the brand’s vision, tone, and positioning. This ensured clarity on the new identity and helped define the magazine’s strategic direction.
Netnography
Analyzed conversations and interactions in the brand’s highly active Facebook group to understand user behavior, content preferences, and engagement patterns.
I found that 4 main post types appear (request for product recommendation, search for a coupon code, request for a review of a product, technical problem mainly related to international shipping). These topics were very useful for planning future features.
User Survey
Collected insights on shopping habits, coupon usage, and decision-making processes. This helped identify user motivations and friction points in the buying journey.
This showed, for example, that many people put products aside (somewhere outside the system, e.g. as bookmarks) to buy them later when they are on sale. Also, that items with a coupon code are not bought immediately, but only after some time to think about it. We would have preferred to keep these features within the system.
Web Analytics
During the data analysis, I looked at landing pages and user journeys. Interaction and CTR rates on articles and the most common search terms. The main problems such as low interaction and affiliate link clicks were clearly visible already from the web analytics.
Card Sorting
When reviewing the search history, we found a lot of simple terms like scooter, tablet, smartwatch. We concluded that users cannot find the products in the menu structure. In the survey we used the „card sorting” method because we wanted to see how users group products.
We also reduced the grouping to one level from the two we had previously used (e.g. home/lighting/product), as both the qualitative and quantitative tools showed that these were not used by users.
Persona
Conducted qualitative interviews and analyzed behavioral data to define our primary user segments. We focused on understanding their motivations, pain points, and goals related to product discovery and purchasing decisions.
Conscious shopper
Goal:
Gather information about a product or product category
Motivation:
Wants to make the best consumer decision by being well-informed
Frustration:
Perceives bias, vague explanations, and slow flow of information
Tech savy
Goal:
Stay up-to-date with the latest tech gadgets
Motivation:
Enjoys reading the magazine and likes staying informed
Frustration:
Doesn’t see fresh and relevant articles
Coupon hunter
Goal:
Shop for the lowest price
Motivation:
Doesn’t want to spend much, often prefers to wait for a deal
Frustration:
If they can’t immediately see opportunities to buy cheaper
Problems and solutions in product design
During our research, we identified four characteristic errors that need to be corrected on the new website.
Problem
Cause
Solution
Users search for simple products and categories
Categorization is not clear, users don’t know where to look for the product
New grouping and highlighting of frequently searched items
Users cannot distinguish between different content types
Color coding is not noticeable. It’s used in multiple places on the site, so users don’t think it has meaning.
It’s also not clear to users that there are separate news, articles, and tests.
Completely new UI solution for news and test cards. Display category-specific elements (e.g., ratings, stars).
Users don’t use links and coupons
Information is scattered within the article. There is a gap between reading the article and making a purchase decision.
Create a highlighted block in the articles and add reminder settings.
No reviews available
No motivation to write reviews. It feels too much like a questionnaire.
Gamification
Searching for simple things
When reviewing the search history, we found many simple terms such as scooter, tablet, smartwatch. We concluded that users are unable to find products within the menu structure.
In the survey, we used the card sorting method because we wanted to see how users would group the products.
We also reduced the grouping from two levels to one (for example: home / lighting / product), since both qualitative and quantitative tools indicated that users were not using these categories.
Hard-to-distinguish content types
Another major issue was that users did not see the difference between articles and tests, and they kept looking for product reviews at the end of every page.
We wanted to make the difference more visible on the homepage and the category pages, but we were not satisfied with the small labels placed in the corners of the cards.
We marked the tests with a rating-specific score or star rating. This made it clear to users where they would also find product evaluations.
Increasing interaction on the site
We needed two types of interactions: user reviews and coupon usage. In the case of coupon codes, the task was relatively easy. The only issue was with the user interface, so we made the coupon section more prominent and better organized.
The other major task was to generate more comments and reviews. From the survey and the netnographic research, we learned that people like to talk about products and share their opinions in comments, but they feel that writing a formal review is a bigger mental burden.
Therefore, we designed a UI solution that allows users to transform their comments into a review with a single toggle.
Gamification
Another solution for increasing interaction was gamification. Users receive points and badges for various interactions, such as comments, ratings, time spent on the site, etc. Users receive special emojis next to their names on the day of their registration anniversary or birthday. In the future, we would like to expand gamification with top lists.
Seasonal popularity
When designing the information architecture, we relied on web analytics, among other things. It turned out that certain product types become popular during certain periods, for example, heated seat covers clearly receive more searches in winter. We therefore designed two sections on the site where products and product categories are added manually. The selection is aided by monitoring search history.
One section is a collection where articles and tests are added based on a specific feature. These can be ‘lifestyle’ content or ‘useful gadgets for winter’.
The other section displays the most popular searches from the past 1-3 months. Although we have reorganised the categories to make products easier to find, it was still worth providing users with shortcuts so that they can access popular content with just a few clicks.
Verdict
The Reflekt re-branding project showed that a single, intense design sprint can spark meaningful change. But true transformation is not achieved in one leap — it emerges through continuous development, iteration, and refinement. The sprint was the spark; the real magic lies in ongoing improvements, testing, and integrating user feedback. This project was not only about creating a new visual identity, but also about embracing the mindset that design is a living process: there is always room to grow, always an opportunity to create a better experience.
