Case study: Rapid7 Goals and SLAs redesign

How a content redesign saved a struggling feature and increased completion rates from 65% to 95%

Summary

Redesigned the Goals and SLAs feature through user research and cross-functional collaboration, increasing completion rates from 65% to 95% in a 3-month fast-follow project

My role: Senior UX Writer and Technical Writer - Conducted user research, collaborated with cross-functional teams, and redesigned UI copy and content strategy; wrote product docs

Timeline: 3 months

Tools: Miro, Figma, Amplitude

Core team: Lead Product Manager, Principal Software Engineer, Senior UX Designer, UX Researcher II

Challenge

The UX Research team conducted user interviews and surveys, then shared findings with the product team. The PM tracked analytics to see where customers dropped off. To get a complete picture, I also interviewed Security Strategists, Practice Advisors, and Support Engineers who worked directly with customers experiencing these challenges.

Insight 1

Customers felt overwhelmed by the wizard and abandoned it mid-flow

Insight 2

Users were confused about goal types and couldn't determine which goals applied to their security work

Content Design Process

Discovery & Collaboration

Work sessions with Security Strategists and Practice Advisors informed my content redesign ideas. They walked me through the steps where they saw their customers struggling. After these sessions, I went through the wizard to create each goal and SLA a few times to familiarize myself with the existing flow.

During this exercise, I realized that asking users to pick a goal type at the start added unnecessary complexity, since they needed to know what they wanted to make in the first place.

Wireframing & Iteration

I started wireframing in Miro to wireframe and share some new content design ideas with the UX designer, product manager, advisors, and strategists. I made several rounds of iterations after getting some feedback:

Attempt 1:

Added a new goal to Step 1 and rewrote the querying copy in question format

Attempt 3:

Rewrote copy based on the type of data the user chose

Progressive Disclosure

Break tasks into smaller chunks to avoid overwhelming users

Attempt 2:

Asked Engineering if we could display content based on user selections—they said yes

Attempt 4:

Combined Steps 2 and 3, since content was relevant to the selected content type

After getting approval from other disciplines, I shared my final recommendation with the PM. We didn't have time to test it, but given the feature's dismal performance, anything was an improvement.

Content Design Strategy

Based on research insights, I proposed redesigning content around three key principles:

Solution: Step-by-Step Content Redesign

Step 1: Goal Selection

Changes made:

Added preset templates of popular use cases like Remediate All Critical Vulnerabilities and Ensure Assets Have Ownership Tag for easy customization
Included a New Goal option that didn't require users to know the goal type upfront
Removed the barrier of having to understand technical goal types before starting

Goals and SLAs help users track their security efforts by setting goals and defining metrics to measure against them. However, the original launch was struggling with user adoption—research uncovered significant usability issues that needed attention:

Low completion rate: Only 65% of users completed goal creation
Confusion at Step 1: Users didn't know which goal type to select, despite having definitions and product documentation links
Mid-flow abandonment: Users abandoned the feature midway due to confusing workflow
Time-consuming: Users who created a goal still took an average of 12+ minutes

Research & Key Insights

Insight 3

The words in the UI were awkwardly phrased, leaving users uncertain about what actions to take

Match Mental Models

Format tasks in questions to help user think about tasks at hand

Contextual Guidance

Provide help when and where users need it

Before: The original interface assumed users knew which goal type they wanted to build and used jargon

After: The new design offers a "NEW GOAL" option, plus customizable preset templates based on common use cases

Step 2: Configuration

Changes made:

Allowed users to select either Remediate Vulnerabilities or Configure Assets, which refreshes the wizard to display the related vulnerabilities or assets flow
Decoupled query building into separate steps
Rewrote content as questions to help users think about the task at hand
Added contextual explanations ("You'll load or build a query to narrow down your assets") and links to help documentation