Little Language Models

Challenge

A major American energy company receives thousands of weekly email inquiries through their contact form. After a recent redesign, questions were being routed to the wrong departments, causing delays, inefficiencies, and customer frustration. The company needed to understand why users were submitting inquiries incorrectly and fix the underlying UX issues.

Discovery

I conducted a mixed-methods analysis using Hotjar heatmaps and Google Analytics path exploration to understand real user behavior. I reviewed screen recordings, tracked scroll depth and click patterns, and identified where users got stuck. This data revealed the root causes of form confusion, allowing me to design low-fidelity solutions targeting specific pain points.

Approach

• Identifying the root causes of form confusion using user behavior tools
  • Tab navigation confusion: Users defaulted to the first tab and submitted forms there, unaware that 7 department-specific tabs existed for faster routing. The expanded default state didn’t signal alternatives.
  • Inconsistent labeling: Tab names mixed two categorization systems—organizational roles (Board of Directors) and topics (Sustainability)—creating ambiguity about which tab matched their inquiry.
  • Unclear page identity: The page title didn’t clearly communicate users were already on the Contact page, causing some to click the contact link in the main navigation, suggesting they thought they were elsewhere.
• Redesigning the experience to address key issues, e.g., content hierarchy, clarified tab labels with consistent naming conventions, and improved page identity to signal to users that they were in the right place, and incorporated frequent inquiries into the page content, reducing the need for email inquiries
• Created a roadmap for the implementation phase

Impact

Result: Users now submit inquiries to the correct departments on the first attempt, enabling faster resolution and improved customer experience.