SEOmoz had just finished their Mozscape search index of the web and wanted to build a tool that would provide customers deep insight into their SEO campaigns. The tool would allow users to tap into this index to research backlinks, find link-building opportunities and discover potentially damaging links. This was initially built as a stand alone web experience and later was integrated into the Moz Pro application and Mozbar.
My role as UX Designer was to work with the product team and help guide the design of the Open Site Explorer experience. We needed to build both a paid and free experiences that allowed users to compare up to 5 domains against each other and would help give deeper insight into their link building campaigns. I worked with the PM and CEO to determine the user flow and features that we would build into the product. I also worked alongside an external front end development team at Urban Influence and provided redlines to guide the CSS and HTML of the feature. We ended up using Illustrator and Photoshop which helped us build out the initial wireframes and final visual design.
We had the challenge of taking a vast amount of data that we got from our Mozscape search index and condensing it down into actionable information for our users. We worked with friendly users from the beginning to determine was information would be relevant to them. There was also a team of in house SEO’s that helped guide the product direction as well. We had the unique opportunity to lead with Open Site Explorer since there was no product in the market that was exposing information like Mozscape.
