Overhauling a Legacy Product
Company: Wikia (now Fandom)
Project: Site Overhaul
My Role: UX Director
Team: Angie Shelton (Product), Danny Horn (Product), Merideth Tennant (Design)
Wikia (now Fandom) is a fan-powered sister site to Wikipedia, covering every pop culture topic you can imagine, from the Muppets to Twilight to World of Warcraft. Just like Wikipedia, Wikia aimed to empower authors all over the world to create high-quality content.
When I joined Wikia in 2010, the site was highly trafficked and passionately loved, but the visual and UX design lagged far behind. Furthermore, Wikia itself had no brand aesthetic or presence - you could easily not realize that all of the different fan sites were actually hosted on one platform. In addition, the site failed basic web accessibility and mobile-friendly standards.
Over the course of my two years at Wikia, we overhauled every surface of the site and created a mobile app. We overhauled the visual and UX design approach to create a modern look and feel, use accessibility standards, and make the site more mobile-friendly. We also strengthened the brand presence to make it clear that there was one popular, collaborative platform underlying all of the individual fan sites.
