Turning Passive Pages into Actionable Dashboards
When users land on a homepage, it should guide them - not make them guess what they need do next.
In WorkSpan’s Marketplace App, users needed to track goals, monitor offers, and take actions - but the platform buried these insights deep inside secondary tabs and reports.
I set out to change that.
The Problem: Critical Insights Were Getting Lost
Designing Widgets That Surface What Matters Most
Rather than redesigning an entire page from scratch, I advocated for a modular widget strategy.
My goal: Bring key insights to the forefront without overwhelming users.
I proposed introducing lightweight, dynamic widgets that would:
Instantly surface progress toward Marketplace goals
Summarize the status of critical offers
Guide users toward urgent actions without needing manual search
Working closely with product managers and engineers, I designed a system of three key widgets - each solving a different piece of the puzzle.
Problem Discovery
Research and user interviews revealed two things:
Many ignored the homepage completely because users felt that the homepage wasn't giving them clear or useful information.
Others spent too long hunting for insights - digging up insights took a user a minimum of 4-5 clicks. Partner managers were overwhelmed. Instead of quick wins, they faced a clutter of links and tabs
The fix? Don’t just show numbers - guide decisions.
The Widgets That Made It Happen
Widget #1: Marketplace Goals Widget
Your business at a glance
The heartbeat of the Marketplace - showing goal progress, offer statuses, and key targets at a glance.
Power users called this their "morning dashboard."
Widget #2 & #3: Offer & Agreement Summary Widgets
Tracking Offers and Taking Action - All in One Place.
The Offer & Agreement Summary widget condensed a complex offer pipeline into a clear visual snapshot - helping teams quickly monitor offers by stage and priority without opening multiple tabs.
Users not only tracked offer health but also immediately saw the next steps they needed to take - like expiring offers, pending approvals, and urgent tasks - all surfaced automatically when they logged in.
Snapshots of the Widgets
Goals Summary Widget
At-a-glance performance overview
Offers & Agreements Tracker
Workflow visibility with clear CTAs, urgency and priority indicators.
Challenges, Iterartions & How I Tackled Them
Even with a clear vision, bringing the new homepage to life came with its own set of hurdles. Here's how we tackled them through thoughtful design and cross-functional collaboration:
Too Much Data, Not Enough Clarity
The challenge: Users were overwhelmed with information and couldn’t easily find what mattered.
What we did:
Prioritized high-impact metrics
Used progressive disclosure to reveal depth only when needed
Reworked the visual hierarchy to reduce cognitive overload
Performance Issues Slowing Things Down
The challenge: Live data fetching was dragging page performance.
What we did:
Partnered with engineering to optimize API calls
Tuned performance to ensure faster load times across widgets, introduced lazy loading.
Diverse User Needs Across Roles
The challenge: Sales Ops, Renewals, and Leadership all needed different things from the same page.
What we did:
Designed modular, role-agnostic widgets
Added customizable CTAs based on workflows to guide action seamlessly
Design in Progress: Ideations, Iterations & the Road to the Final Widget
Before landing on the final version, I explored multiple layouts, data groupings, and visual treatments.
Impact & Expansion: A Homepage That Finally Works
The redesigned homepage made waves when demoed live at AWS re:Invent 2023, drawing enthusiastic feedback from users across functions.
"Love this feature. This is a WOW feature and the heartbeat of marketplace business." - Customer Feedback
Hearing this feedback early reinforced that the widgets were doing more than just displaying data - they were shaping daily workflows.
Faster Insights, Higher Engagement
Launching the widgetized dashboard didn’t just clean up the interface - it changed user behavior:
Users accessed critical insights 2x faster than before
Marketplace page engagement increased by +28% post-widget launch
Power users showed a higher task completion rate without needing external reports
By surfacing the right information at the right time, we made the platform stickier, smarter, and easier to navigate.
The Final Outcome
Scaling the Impact: From Marketplace to Cisco’s Custom Landing Page on WorkSpan
The widget-based redesign didn’t just improve WorkSpan’s Marketplace app.
In 2025, one of our customers, Cisco, adopted the same design principles for their Partner Incentives Portal - a custom landing page on WorkSpan that supports tens of thousands of users across partner organizations through this global-scale initiative.
Partners needed a simpler way to track and claim funds across multiple allocation types - marketing, sales, events, and more.
Using the same modular widget approach, I helped redesign Cisco’s landing page to deliver a 360° view of allocations, deadlines, and approvals - all in one place.
Tasks like checking remaining funds, understanding eligibility, and submitting requests could now be completed at a glance.
Cisco Partners' Landing Page on WorkSpan
Cisco’s Challenges Before the Redesign
I worked closely with internal teams to identify pain points directly from Cisco and their partner users:
Lack of actionable guidance on what to do next
Complex claim workflows with too many steps
No unified view of partner action items
Fragmented navigation across deals, funds, and plans
Deadline tracking spread across email and tools
No centralized view of activity submissions
These challenges created friction for both new and experienced users, often leading to delayed claims and missed deadlines.
By applying the same widget framework, we were able to:
Centralize key actions and next steps
Simplify the submission flow from 5 steps to 3
Surface personalized action items for each user role
Increase partner adoption with little to no retraining
What This Showed
What This Project Taught Me
Critical insights shouldn’t require critical effort. Surfacing matters just as much as designing beautifully.
Real-world usage always surprises you. Early testing with power users helped refine prioritization and interaction patterns.
Atomic design works. Modular widgets allowed us to be flexible, extensible, and user-driven - not locked into rigid page layouts.
It’s one thing to redesign a homepage.
It’s another to design a daily habit.