Overview

Client referrals were happening informally, off to the side of the product, so I designed them a structured path.

Topify connects specialised talent with clients who need it. This project set out to grow the referrals feature and widen its scope, two routes for client referral, a direct form that hands off to the sales team and a shareable referral link, plus a reimagined landing page covering the other programs alongside talent and client referral: Client Team Expansion and Becoming a Topify Client.

The client name has been changed for confidentiality reasons.

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Challenge

The referral feature worked for talent and quietly failed for clients.

Talent referrals were common. Client referrals mostly happened informally, through direct conversation with sales, with no clarity and no tracking. The job was to introduce three distinct programs, design two routes for client referral, make rewards and progress transparent, and pull informal referrals into something people could actually follow.

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Research

Clients were referring, they just had no visible way to do it.

Working with a researcher, I interviewed people who had referred others to the platform and people who had made informal client referrals. Talent referrals were the well-worn path; client referrals ran through side conversations with sales. Across both, people wanted clearer instructions, better tracking, and easier link sharing.

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Solution

One landing page, a subpage per program, customisable links, and one place to track it all.

A unified landing page introduces every program with clear titles, short descriptions, and quick link sharing, with shortcut buttons added to the Talent Portal homepage. Each program then gets its own subpage explaining how it works in four steps, with rewards, eligibility, and next actions spelled out.

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For sharing, users generate, shorten, and customise referral links for email, social, and messaging, introduced with a homepage popup so the feature did not stay hidden. A tracking table then pulls all referral activity into one view, invitee status, progress milestones, reward detail, with tabbed navigation between all invites and program-specific tracking.

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Testing

The numbers backed the structure.

I designed and ran usability tests to check the new designs held up. 67% preferred the new landing page, 64% favoured tabbed navigation in the tracking table, 71% found link generation and customisation useful, and nearly everyone correctly identified the action that triggered a reward.

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Result

Informal client referrals moved into a structured pathway people could follow.

The client referral path pulled informal referrals into formal ones through both forms and link sharing. The tracking table and clear program descriptions cut confusion, and shortcut buttons and simpler navigation made sharing and tracking easier to reach across the platform.