Overview
SEO Radar is a powerful monitoring platform built for SEO professionals and enterprise teams.
Its core strength lies in offering a feature set significantly broader than that of its competitors. However, with this depth came a critical challenge: complexity was beginning to compromise usability.
The interface was dense, the workflows inconsistent, and new users faced a steep learning curve. SEO Radar needed more than a visual refresh—it required a complete rethinking of how the product communicated, guided, and empowered users.
Upside partnered with the SEO Radar team to lead a comprehensive product redesign. Our work spanned user research, experience design, interface transformation, and design system creation, with the goal of aligning product depth with usability, clarity, and future scalability.
In numbers
Collaboration
Upside operated as a strategic partner throughout the engagement across product, UX, and UI. Our work extended beyond surface-level redesigns to include structural rethinking, deep user research, systematized design, and implementation support. We worked alongside SEO Radar’s product owners, developers, and leadership team to realign the experience around user behavior, product goals, and market expectations.
We collaborated closely with SEO Radar’s internal teams to:
- Leading discovery to uncover root usability issues
- Redefining product architecture for better navigation and comprehension
- Designing and validating new workflows through continuous user testing
- Delivering a robust, scalable design system
- Supporting implementation to ensure fidelity and alignment
This was not about simplifying the product by reducing features. It was about making its complexity usable, efficient, and scalable.
Challenges
As the platform grew more powerful, the experience became harder to navigate. With more features than any competitor in its space, SEO Radar’s core advantage risked becoming its biggest UX liability. Users struggled to complete tasks, onboarding required significant effort, and the interface no longer reflected the sophistication of the product behind it.
SEO Radar needed a design strategy that could bring structure to the complexity—one that elevated usability without sacrificing configurability.
Breakdown of our work
User Research and Behavioral Mapping
The project began with a deep investigation into real user behavior. Over 100 hours of recorded usage sessions and 10 user interviews revealed critical friction in task flows, navigation, and information processing. These findings were reinforced through 80+ hours of collaborative workshops with the SEO Radar team, surfacing both user pain points and internal design assumptions. The result was a clear, behavior-based understanding of how the platform was used—and where it fell short.
Product Architecture and UX Strategy
Armed with actionable insight, the product was restructured to align with user goals. Core user journeys were re-mapped, with streamlined entry points and reduced steps for high-frequency tasks. Information hierarchy was clarified, making it easier for users to understand where they were, what to do next, and how to achieve results—without needing to decode complexity along the way.
Iterative Wireframing and Usability Testing
Key design assumptions were tested early and often. Through iterative wireframing, Upside prototyped workflows and interfaces, validating them directly with target users. This approach allowed for early correction of flawed assumptions, minimized risk in the final design phase, and ensured that the end solution was rooted in user validation—not theoretical best practices.
UI Design and Design System Development
The visual redesign brought clarity, consistency, and scalability to the product’s interface. A modern, cohesive design language was applied across components, and a modular design system was developed to support both current functionality and future expansion. This system gave SEO Radar’s internal teams a toolkit for building features faster—without compromising user experience.
Design-to-Development Alignment
Throughout the build phase, Upside worked closely with SEO Radar’s Technology Team to ensure design fidelity. Deliverables included detailed documentation, component libraries, and structured feedback loops. This hands-on collaboration ensured that the final product didn’t just reflect design intentions—it delivered them.
Outcomes
The redesigned SEO Radar platform now delivers a user experience that matches its technical sophistication. Key outcomes included:
- Improved onboarding and adoption. New users complete tasks faster, with greater confidence.
- Enhanced usability for all user types. Power users retained access to advanced features, while less experienced users could navigate with ease.
- A scalable, future-ready design system. New features can now be implemented more consistently and efficiently.
- Stronger product-market alignment. The interface now reinforces the brand’s positioning as the most advanced tool in its category.
What began as a usability project became a product transformation—laying the foundation for continued growth and innovation.
Technologies we used
Conclusion
SEO Radar is a platform built for performance—but its power was locked behind a steep learning curve. Upside’s partnership enabled the team to rethink the experience from the ground up, using design as a strategic lever to align complexity with usability.
Through behavioral insight, structural rethinking, and scalable design systems, the product evolved from dense and overwhelming to clear, intuitive, and efficient—without compromising the flexibility its users rely on.
This case demonstrates how thoughtful UX strategy and design leadership can future-proof even the most complex platforms.
