BDO

BDO delivers assurance, tax, and advisory services to clients throughout the country and around the globe. BDO USA and Canada have common goals as a global entity and some uniqueness that needs to be reflected in their new websites.

Visit BDO USA website

Visit BDO Canada website

The Goal

Modernized BDO’s entire website to reflect their brand while driving user-centric experiences, personalization, thought leadership, and intuitive navigation across complex services to boost conversions.

My Role

Led UX strategy as Senior UX Designer at Diff Agency, presenting to BDO USA and BDO Canada clients, mentoring a junior designer, and partnering with a visual designer for a seamless developer handoff.

Key Deliverables: Competitive analysis, persona workshops, user journeys, information architecture, 37 wireframes, tree testing, first-click testing, and two rounds of moderated usability testing.

Learnings and Takeaways

Accountabilities

Unified design system across two complex entities reduced redundant effort by ~30% while maintaining brand consistency and service-specific flexibility.

BDO USA and BDO Canada were designed in parallel. While both institutions follow the same branding, I need to ensure the navigation and functionality elements are consistent and flexible enough to work for both entities with their own different set of services.
Created compelling wireframes and user flows while mentoring a junior UX designer in the team. Accountable for delivering the wireframes on time for client development.
Produced high-fidelity prototypes documenting functionality, user flows, and developer handoff documentation.
Partnered with the Project Manager to align scope with projected hours for the UX team, and collaborated closely with Visual Designers to ensure UX thinking translated seamlessly into final mockups.

Usability testing

Conducted comprehensive usability testing across BDO Canada and USA, leveraging overlapping project scopes to deliver dual-client value through shared insights.
Specifically, BDO USA performed a First Click, A/B Tree Test, and Moderate Usability Testing.

First Click:
1. The goal was to assess the findability of specific content and discover unforeseen issues with the new user experience.
2. Remote unmoderated first-click testing using the optimalworkshop.com platform, over 70 participants.
A/B Tree Test:
1. Directly compared two IA proposals, validating optimal navigation labels and structure to resolve early architecture debates.
2. Two unmoderated tree tests (A & B) using optimalworkshop.com platform, with 100 participants.
Moderated Usability Testing: T
1. TTested strategic comprehension and category alignment; authored test plans, prototype oversight, and synthesized findings into implementation-ready recommendations.
2. Facilitated remotely by Akendi and using the UserZoomGo user test platform.
3. Created the testing plan, oversaw the prototype, and made recommendations based on the findings provided by Akendi.

Multi-phase testing (170+ participants total) de-risked the platform redesign, ensuring BDO’s complex services were intuitively navigable while establishing a unified testing framework across Canada/USA operations.