Case Study · GoDaddy / vSplash
vSplash V6 Portal
Uncovering Workflow Bottlenecks and Driving a High-Density Interface Redesign
Role
Lead UI/UX Designer
Company
GoDaddy · vSplash
Platform
V6 Operations Portal
Timeline
2023 – 2024
Team
Designer + Dev + QA
The vSplash V6 portal was the operational backbone of GoDaddy's website build team — a tool used daily by designers, QA specialists, integrators, and project managers to manage hundreds of client orders. But it was slowing everyone down. This is the story of how I redesigned it from the inside out.
The Before
A high-impact tool actively used by 100+ team members every day.
The V6 portal managed the full order lifecycle for GoDaddy's website-build outsourcing operation from intake to QA to delivery. At any point, designers were juggling 20–30 active orders, switching between tabs, hunting for links buried in dense text fields, and decoding status labels that weren't consistent across the system.
The existing V6 portal — information-dense, visually inconsistent, and cognitively exhausting to navigate.
The Problem
Four things breaking the workflow
every single day.
After shadowing team members and reviewing support patterns, four core problems emerged.
They weren't cosmetic. They were structural — baked into the architecture of the portal itself.
Navigation chaos
The left sidebar had 30+ unlabeled categories with no hierarchy. Users couldn't tell at a glance where they were or what needed their attention.
Split-brain layout
Critical order details were buried in a tiny side panel with 8 collapsed tabs. Designers had to click through multiple tabs just to find a Figma link.
No visual urgency
Due dates and SLAs were in plain text columns with no color coding or priority signals. Everything looked equally important so nothing felt urgent.
Status inconsistency
"Design In Progress," "Build In Progress," "Design QA" labels were inconsistent across the system, making handoffs confusing and error-prone.
"I spend 10 minutes every morning just figuring out which orders I need to work on today."
— Designer on the vSplash build team, observed during research
The Redesign
Three problems solved, side by side.
The redesign wasn't about making it prettier. It was about reducing the number of decisions a team member had to make before doing actual design work.
Here's what changed and why.
1 — Navigation:
from a list of 30 to a focused sidebar
Before
Afrer
2 — Order details:
from buried tabs to a focused side panel
Before
After
3 — Status system:
from inconsistent labels to a unified language
Before
After
Design Decisions
The principles that guided every choice.
Every design decision came back to one question: does this reduce cognitive load for someone managing 20+ active orders at 9am?
Role-aware navigation
The sidebar was restructured around what you need to do, not around how the database is organized. Designers see their queue first. QA specialists see their review list first. The system adapts to the role.
One primary action per context
The sidebar was restructured around what you need to do, not around how the database is organized. Designers see their queue first. QA specialists see their review list first. The system adapts to the role.
Urgency surfaced, not buried
Due dates and SLA risk indicators were moved inline into the order row itself. Red = due today. No more scanning a column of identical-looking dates to figure out what's on fire.
Dark sidebar for orientation
The high-contrast dark sidebar creates a persistent anchor in a visually busy interface. At any moment, the user knows where they are and can return to their home view in one click reducing the disorientation of navigating deep order states.
Impact
Designed for the people
who live in this tool.
The redesign reduced daily friction for a team managing 70+ active orders at any time.
By surfacing urgency, unifying the status language, and cutting navigation time, the portal went from a source of daily complaints to a tool the team actually trusted.
Below are the qualitative and directional improvements observed post-implementation across
the build team.
65%
Fewer clicks to find an order's
Figma link
Avg 7 clicks → 2.5 clicks
30+
Nav items reduced to 12 clear
categories
Role-grouped, badge-annotated
100+
Daily active users across design,
QA & PM
GoDaddy build team
5
Unified status stages replaced
15+ inconsistent labels
Queue · Design · Build · QA · Done