Glassdoor for Employers
Taking an agency launch into Glassdoor’s design system
Client
Glassdoor
Role
UX lead for the B2B marketing site
Team
Marketing PM, 2 engineers, content and SEO
Timeline
2018–2021 · Module Library v1 in 2019
Partners
Evans Hunt (v1 site design, 2018)
Overview
Glassdoor for Employers is Glassdoor’s B2B marketing site, where companies learn about employer branding and recruiting products and sign up. I joined Glassdoor in August 2018, in the middle of the site’s launch. The agency Evans Hunt designed and launched v1 on WordPress, with pages assembled from modules in the Gutenberg editor. I took it from launch to a system: I documented it, then brought it into Glassdoor’s product design system one template at a time, so the marketing site looked and worked like the product it sold.
23
domains in 10 languages on one module system
35+
modules marketers could publish with, no designer needed
6+
years the site has run on the same module library
Module Library v1 launched in December 2019 and the site still runs on it. Page-level traffic results are in the Outcome.
01
Problem
The new marketing site launched with modules but no rules, so every page was an engineer’s best guess, and it didn’t look like the product it was selling.
There was no style guide, so engineers interpreted the designs as best they could, and every new page needed design time from the only UX designer in B2B marketing.
Two design languages. The site was built before it could share the product’s patterns, so marketing and product didn’t yet look like the same company.
No documentation. Without a style guide, every build was an interpretation.
Speed and scale. Marketing needed to publish without waiting on design, across a site that would grow to 23 domains in 10 languages.
02
Turning an agency launch into a system
I worked with a marketing PM and two engineers. Four decisions shaped v2:
Build on the launch, not over it. I kept the WordPress and Gutenberg foundation and brought its modules into Glassdoor’s product design system, vetting every new pattern with the design system team, so images, icons and UI matched the product.
Document before redesigning. I built a UI kit and style guide for the patterns unique to marketing, so design and engineering worked from the same source.
Give marketers modules, not one-off pages. In December 2019 I delivered Module Library v1: a playbook of about 35 Gutenberg modules, from heroes and feature promos to success stories, pricing, Marketo forms and a citations drawer, so content creators could publish on the fly.
Redesign where the traffic is, then scale. I started with the highest-traffic templates (the blog, Success Stories and a new Resource Library). The same modules then carried the Spain and Italy rollout in 2019 and a December 2020 messaging relaunch across 23 domains and 10 languages, where I oversaw every affected page, art-directed contractors and wrote the handoff specs.
Where we changed course
The Resource Library started with a Netflix-like ambition: browse, binge, go deeper. Sessions rose 66%, but pages per session fell from 3.3 to 2.3. That could mean the browsing idea didn’t land, or that people found the right resource faster. Pages per session can’t tell those apart. Next time I’d define success as finding the right resource, measured through downloads and sign-ups, not as reading more of them.
Design: Evans Hunt (v1, 2018)
Where I started: the v1 homepage Evans Hunt designed and launched in 2018, built from Gutenberg modules but without a style guide.
UI Kit v1.0 (November 2019): the style guide v1 never had. Color, type, spacing, grids, depth and core components, all documented in Sketch so every new module started from the same parts.
Module Library v1 (December 2019). The playbook gave content creators one page per module: what it’s for, the content each part takes, character limits, and the customization options available.
Resource Library, from concept to launch (October 2020). Two grayscale explorations, a search-first header and a filter sidebar, led to the launched page: a featured story, a quick start guide, topic chips and trending content, all built from library modules.
The Post Job page, assembled from library modules: a hero, a partner banner and a three-up feature row. It sent employers ready to hire straight to Indeed, with a 12.5% click-through.
Today’s site, still built from the same module library: four pages, one set of heroes, value-prop rows and alternating feature modules.
03
Outcome
Success Stories redesign: +68% sessions and +11% time on page.
Resource Library: +66% sessions and +24% users after its October 2020 launch.
Post Job page: 12.5% click-through to Indeed and 100+ free sign-ups a week.
December 2020 relaunch, shared with the marketing team: +12% organic sessions, +32% time on site and +224% organic sessions to the free sign-up page.
Blog redesign: +5.67% pages per session.
A system that lasted. Later redesigns were built from the same module library, and the site still runs on it today.
04
What I learned
Documentation is design work. The UI kit and module library did more for the site than any single page I designed.
Marketing is part of the product. Building on the product design system, instead of beside it, made the site easier to maintain and the brand easier to trust.
Agree on the number first. The Resource Library grew sessions but lost depth. Next time I’d settle up front which number defines success.
