Santoso
Back to Work
Navigation Flow Update
Company
SteelSeries
Role
UX Designer
Type
E-Commerce
As mentioned before, the pandemic caused a tremendous uplift in gaming engagement — and with it, gaming equipment experienced an upsurge as well. People who hadn't gamed in years found themselves reliving their nostalgia while looking for ways to enhance that experience and make it more meaningful during lockdown. There were also new generation console launches around that time, including the deployment of cloud platforms and handheld gaming devices. Prior to the pandemic, console and PC were the preferred outlets, with the latter catering to gamers through headsets, mice, keyboards, and controller interfacing. With gaming experiences and equipment becoming more intertwined, SteelSeries needed to adapt its customer journey to reflect those changes — and what better place to start than the company's navigation on its direct to consumer platform.
Problem
Overcoming Odds
There were a lot of factors working against us with this particular project. The biggest being supply constraints, increasing demand and limits to our analytics platforms. Even though we had those limits, having a slice of the pie to gave us some helpful insight into traffic and engagement. Getting any data even an approximation established user behaviors and patterns. Along with a business acquisition, we made sure the navigation was future proofto account for that inclusion of that brand in case it became an intergrated element on SteelSeries e-commerce site.
Company
Considering Everything
Determined to enhance what was within our control, we leveraged what data we had to paint the bigger picture. We relied on design resources such as the Baymard Institute to understand industry benchmarks and conducted competitive analysis of notable gaming brands to see how we could do things uniquely for SteelSeries. My director and I also identified an affordance in the process through our findings. Gamers especially crave a deeper connection with the culture, and SteelSeries — with its dedicated brand following — has a firm foot in it. By incorporating blog posts and updates featuring prominent influencers and esports teams, our hypothesis was that it would increase engagement and CRO.
Solution
Measurable Results
Surprisingly we saw an uplift of roughly 2% CRO, while creating more specificity and less friction throughout the purchase journey. For low quantity product lines, we focused on displaying the full product image for each menu item. Unfortunately one of the gaming platforms at the time had been sunsetted, however we accounted for that edge case by keeping it simple and removing the link dynamically. The implementation is also responsive, so no purchase journey is left untouched.
Year Over Year
3-5%
Duration
3 Months
CRO
3%
Collaborators
Jane Prizer
Toni Au
Jackson Mills
Timmy Stoneberg
Kathy Olsen
Ashley Karim
© 2026
Santoso
Visual
UX
Product
Work
About
Back to Work
Navigation Flow Update
Company
SteelSeries
Role
UX Designer
Type
E-Commerce
As mentioned before, the pandemic caused a tremendous uplift in gaming engagement — and with it, gaming equipment experienced an upsurge as well. People who hadn't gamed in years found themselves reliving their nostalgia while looking for ways to enhance that experience and make it more meaningful during lockdown. There were also new generation console launches around that time, including the deployment of cloud platforms and handheld gaming devices. Prior to the pandemic, console and PC were the preferred outlets, with the latter catering to gamers through headsets, mice, keyboards, and controller interfacing. With gaming experiences and equipment becoming more intertwined, SteelSeries needed to adapt its customer journey to reflect those changes — and what better place to start than the company's navigation on its direct to consumer platform.
Problem
Overcoming Odds
There were a lot of factors working against us with this particular project. The biggest being supply constraints, increasing demand and limits to our analytics platforms. Even though we had those limits, having a slice of the pie to gave us some helpful insight into traffic and engagement. Getting any data even an approximation established user behaviors and patterns. Along with a business acquisition, we made sure the navigation was future proofto account for that inclusion of that brand in case it became an intergrated element on SteelSeries e-commerce site.
Process
Considering Everything
Determined to enhance what was within our control, we leveraged what data we had to paint the bigger picture. We relied on design resources such as the Baymard Institute to understand industry benchmarks and conducted competitive analysis of notable gaming brands to see how we could do things uniquely for SteelSeries. My director and I also identified an affordance in the process through our findings. Gamers especially crave a deeper connection with the culture, and SteelSeries — with its dedicated brand following — has a firm foot in it. By incorporating blog posts and updates featuring prominent influencers and esports teams, our hypothesis was that it would increase engagement and CRO.
Solution
Measurable Results
Surprisingly we saw an uplift of roughly 2% CRO, while creating more specificity and less friction throughout the purchase journey. For low quantity product lines, we focused on displaying the full product image for each menu item. Unfortunately one of the gaming platforms at the time had been sunsetted, however we accounted for that edge case by keeping it simple and removing the link dynamically. The implementation is also responsive, so no purchase journey is left untouched.
Year Over Year
3-5%
Duration
3 Months
CRO
3%
Collaborators
Jane Prizer
Toni Au
Jackson Mills
Timmy Stoneberg
Kathy Olsen
Ashley Karim
© 2026