- Content Strategy
- Information Architecture
- Visual Design
Building scalable web experiences at Questrade
When Questrade needed to modernize its website, I led the push for a user-centered approach that improved engagement, boosted clarity, and increased conversions.
25,573
new prospect in 6 months
+7M sessions
in 12 months
+1.2%
increase in attributed revenue
Revenue expressed as % for NDA reasons
A web experience that was
showing its age
It's 2018. Schitt’s Creek is blowing up, Beyoncé’s ruling Coachella and Questrade.com just had its last major update. The site was doing its job, but by the time I joined in 2021, the cracks were starting to show.
We used internal jargon that didn’t align with how users think or search, which made it harder for them to find the content they were looking for.
Most pages had bounce rates over 80%. Between 50–70% of users dropped off after the hero banner, without seeing any of our value.
Inconsistent design elements and page layouts were undermining trust and making the experience feel disjointed, which hurt our credibility.
Identifying gaps and opportunities
I led my team's research, where we dove deep into our existing content and structure, tested our IA, and gathered insights.
- Tree Testing In close collaboration with our UX research team, we conducted baseline tree testing to evaluate the performance of our existing IA. After updating the structure, we ran a second round of testing to measure impact before investing further in visual or interaction design.
- Content Audit I completed a thorough audit of our site content to assess its structure, quality, and performance. This helped me identify gaps, redundancies, and opportunities to better support user needs.
- Competitive Analysis My team analyzed top bank and fintech competitors to understand how they structured content, what questions they answered for users, and which topics they prioritized across key pages.
- Customer Feedback Review We spoke with our customer service team and reviewed Qualtrics data to identify recurring pain points and common user tasks. This helped us ground our work in real user sentiment and behavior.
What our research was telling us
- Branded terms confused users.
- Account type content was only found after several attempts.
- Many struggled to find our trading apps, likely due to unclear labeling.
- Mixing technical and domain content in the learning centre made discovery harder.
Creating a self-evident architecture
Redesigning our IA focused on creating unambigous sections, bringing content together in a single place and updating our labels to use terms familiar to users.
Snapshot of the top 2 levels of our redesigned IA. We focused on clear labelling and surfacing value-oriented content.
Making room for growth
Questrade was growing fast, with more product launches on the way. I introduced the Start Investing category to organize core investing pages under a scalable structure that could support future expansion.
Consolidating scattered content
Account type content was scattered across multiple pages and often repeated. We consolidated it into a dedicated Account Types section, simplifying navigation and making future updates easier.
Surfacing a key differentiator
Questrade’s trading apps and tools were a major differentiator, but they were buried. We created a standalone Apps & Tools category to surface this value and make it easier for users to discover.
Turning low-performing space into real value
The About Us menu saw low engagement, with most traffic going to promotions. We replaced it with Ways to Save, a value-focused section that highlights offers like Questrade Plus and Questrade Reserve.
Putting it all together
Once our IA was validated (through more tree testing), I led the design of new header, footer and mega nav components.
We built mobile first navigation and masthead elements, designed to reduce cognitive load and make wayfinding simpler.
Enticing users to stay
Our research showed that our hero banners were a major problem. We had only a few seconds to clearly communicate our value, capture interest, and guide users toward key actions.
I worked closely with our content and engineering teams to develop the high-level strategy for all our hero banners. We needed to tell people right away what we were offering and why they should care:
Guiding users to take action
As Questrade’s digital storefront, the website needed to build user confidence in order for them to act. We do this by answering key question, building trust, and then guiding users to take action.
I developed a custom process to gather customer insights. This meant we needed to talk to our customer service team, look at our Qualrics feedback forms and perform competitor analysis to better understand what questions users had.
Once we developed an exhaustive list of questions, they were prioritized based on frequency and value. Finally, I applied the AIDA content model to guide content-first wireframes and visual design.
Bringing our vision to life
With wireframes in place, we leaned on the Marketing Design System I also developed to quickly build and refine each landing page.
Visual mockups for the Managed Investing landing page. This became the blueprint for redesigning dozens of pages across Questrade.com.
We scaled this strategy to 18+ pages over the year, emphasizing scannability and strong visual storytelling to build trust and confidence.
Screenshots of our Active Trader, TFSA and Options pages, all using the same content and design strategy.
We applied the same strategy to net-new pages like the Questrade Plus landing page, using dark mode and video to connect with active, tech-savvy investors.
As request came in for net-new pages, we continued to apply the same high-level strategy. Pictured here is the Questrade Plus promotional page, one of the best performing pages on the site.
The results here were immediate. The Questrade Plus landing page became the best performing landing page on Questrade.com, with over 1500 subscriptions in the first week and an average engagement rate of 93%
From strategy to measurable impact
Our work drove a 34% increase in scroll depth and added 38 seconds to average time-on-page. It also contributed to 25,573 new prospects, 7M+ organic sessions, and a 1.2% revenue lift.
Our strong SEO focus delivered results quickly. Within two weeks, one of our most popular account type pages ranked on the first page of Google search results.
A year of progress and what I'd change
I’m incredibly proud of what my team accomplished. Over the course of a year, we took on a complex, multi-layered redesign and delivered meaningful results that improved both the user experience and business outcomes.
Even though I’ve since moved on from Questrade, the work we did has had a lasting impact. The new IA, content strategy, and design system we introduced continue to shape the site’s evolution.
If I had the chance to revisit this project, I would have also prioritized improving our internal search experience. It was a key discovery tool for users, but it lacked the usability and visual clarity we brought to the rest of the site.
