Personio
Home 2.0
The most-visited surface in Personio, reimagined as a customizable platform centerpiece.
Role
Sr Product Designer
Duration
3 months
Year
2024
Origin
A second shot at the most-visited surface in Personio
Home 1.0 launched in December 2023 — the result of a cross-functional squad pulling together Design, Architecture, and Design System teams. It started from a solid foundation: comprehensive usage analysis and a clear understanding of the personas and needs around the surface.
But the data told a different story after launch. Home had become the most-visited screen in the product, and also the one users were most eager to leave.
Challenge
The most-visited screen was the most abandoned
Personio’s biggest detractors consistently cited Usability, Complexity, and Navigation. Users’ first impression of Home was that it felt too busy — widgets compacted together, too many things happening at once, feeling more like a hindrance than a help.
55%
of unique users immediately navigated away from Home using the sidebar
88%
of total users had no interaction with Home in a given session
−4pts
NPS drop following the previous Home release
€184K
ARR lost to competitors in the UK alone
The consequences were business-critical. Around €184K in ARR was lost to competitors in the UK alone, a further ~€210K from churn customers, and NPS dropped 4 points directly following the previous release. Something had to change — and it had to change at the foundation, not with a patch.
Research
Understanding what Home actually needs to do
We ran a multi-method research program: current usage analysis, behavioral analysis, 25 card sorting sessions (5 moderated, 20 unmoderated), and a structured competitors analysis.
The central finding was striking: supervisors and employees prioritize information in nearly identical ways. Both groups’ mental models are shaped by their circles of influence, making relevance the single biggest driver of perceived value.
Personal impact
Everyone
Directly affects me and the tasks I need to get done.
Team impact
Managers
Helps manage the team and improve team performance.
Colleague perspective
Everyone
Understanding what others are dealing with — social context.
Organizational perspective
Leaders & HR
Seeing the bigger, company-wide picture.
We also mapped two distinct need types that Home must serve simultaneously: functional needs (recording attendance, accessing payslips, responding to feedback, completing recruiting tasks) and social needs (feeling connected with colleagues, staying informed of absences and special occasions, celebrating team moments).
Design guidelines
Four principles that shaped every decision
Solve the functional job to be done
Enable users to deep-dive into their data and take action without friction. Time-sensitive tasks and frequent actions must be front and center.
Serve emotional needs
Make employees feel a sense of belonging. Celebrate colleagues, surface social moments, and build connection — not just information.
Delight through craft
Deliver memorable experiences through strong visual hierarchy, considered use of color, and motion that feels alive without being noisy.
Reflect the customer's brand
Leverage each customer's brand color and visual identity to create a genuine sense of ownership. Home should feel like theirs, not ours.
Opportunity
Home as the centerpiece of a platform-wide reset
The in-depth analysis surfaced an opportunity that went beyond fixing widgets. We were looking at a chance to overhaul the platform’s architecture, the design system, and Personio’s rebrand all in a single, coordinated effort.
Home became the centerpiece of the new Personio — the place where the redesigned information architecture, fresh visual language, and brand customization capabilities would all show up first.
Solution
Clean, brand-forward, and built to be owned
The redesigned Home resolved the visual noise of 1.0 through a clearer layout system — a masonry and 2-column structure that creates natural hierarchy without rigidity. Each widget breathes, and the page as a whole reads at a glance.
Crucially, the new surface was designed to be customized. Customers can now apply their brand color and control the visual depth of their content, turning Personio into something that genuinely feels like theirs. This wasn’t cosmetic — it was a strategic move to reduce churn and drive competitive differentiation in a crowded market.
The opt-in flow for existing customers was deliberately low-friction: admins could preview, configure, and activate the new Home without requiring engineering changes or external setup. For new customers, it became part of the onboarding journey from day one.
Early impact
Adopted fast, with remarkably low friction
The metrics from the opt-in beta told a clear story: customers embraced the new experience immediately, and the customization surface — historically a risk area for support load — generated almost no tickets.
~98%
of admins completed the customization flow during the opt-in beta
~80%
of admins kept the new Personio experience active throughout opt-in
<4%
of new support tickets related to customization or Home after launch
Lasting influence
The patterns that outlived the project
Home 2.0 proved that a single, well-executed surface redesign can anchor a platform-wide transformation. The visual language, layout system, and customization architecture established here became the foundation that subsequent product areas — across the core Personio platform — built from.
It also demonstrated something less tangible but equally important: that product design at staff level means knowing when to make one coordinated swing instead of many incremental patches.