Back to Work Collate.io Website
Overview Problem Process Design Impact

Collate.io Website · Process

The full process

The research, personas and flows behind Collate.io Website. The case study covers the decisions; this is the work underneath them.

02 — User Research

User Persona & Goals

Enterprise deals involve a buying committee. Collate's website had to speak to each stakeholder simultaneously — earning trust at the CTO level while giving technical leads and procurement teams exactly what they need.

👤
Nikhil Bansal
CTO at Enterprise, 47
Goals
  • Evaluate Collate's fit for enterprise data governance
  • Understand security certifications and compliance posture
  • Request a demo before involving procurement
Pain Points
  • Too much technical jargon — needs executive ROI messaging
  • No clear articulation of business outcomes, only features
🧑
Sonia Kapoor
VP of Data at Mid-market, 38
Goals
  • Understand differentiators from free OpenMetadata
  • See customer proof and case studies from similar companies
  • Get pricing or tier comparison before engaging sales
Pain Points
  • Pricing not visible anywhere on the site
  • Unclear upgrade path from open-source to managed
👩
Renu Sharma
Procurement Manager, 30
Goals
  • Verify security certifications and compliance standards
  • Find SLA details and uptime guarantees
  • Assess vendor credibility and track record
Pain Points
  • No trust signals or compliance badges visible on first load
  • Legal and security pages hidden from main navigation

03 — Business Challenges

Core Challenges

CHALLENGE 01
⚖️
Differentiating from Free OpenMetadata

Visitors who knew OpenMetadata arrived at Collate asking "why would I pay for this?" The site needed to answer that in the first scroll — leading with AI agents, managed cloud, SLAs, and enterprise security unavailable in the open-source version.

CHALLENGE 02
🏛️
Building Enterprise Trust on First Load

Security compliance, customer logos, and analyst recognition are table stakes for enterprise B2B. Designing a trust-signal system that felt genuine and specific to Collate — rather than templated add-ons — required a dedicated trust architecture in the design system.

CHALLENGE 03
🔁
Long B2B Sales Cycle — Multi-Visit Nurturing

Enterprise data platform purchases take 3–9 months. The site needed to serve returning visitors at different stages — initial awareness, active evaluation, and pre-purchase justification — without overwhelming any single session.

CHALLENGE 04
📅
Converting Technical Users to Demo Requests

Technical evaluators who understood the product deeply were the least likely to request a demo — preferring to self-research. The demo CTA strategy needed to be compelling enough for non-technical champions while not alienating technical gatekeepers.


04 — Secondary Research

Market Insights

FINDING 01
2×
Demo Request Growth Expected

Benchmarking similar enterprise B2B redesigns projected a 2× increase in demo requests — validated by comparable SaaS companies that shifted to demo-first CTAs with trust-signal-led pages. This framed our design success metric from day one.

FINDING 02
13
Content Pieces Before Decision

B2B buyers consume an average of 13 pieces of content before making a vendor decision. The site's information architecture needed to anticipate multi-visit, multi-stakeholder research journeys — not just convert on first visit.

FINDING 03
4.2min
Enterprise Visitor Engagement

Enterprise visitors spend an average of 4.2 minutes on site — the highest engagement segment. This validated investing in deep content pages (Security, Case Studies, Pricing tiers) rather than optimising purely for above-the-fold conversion.


07 — User Flow

The Journey

STEP 01
Enterprise Ad / SEO
Visitor arrives via paid enterprise search ad or organic SEO — already in evaluation mode, comparing 3–5 vendors in parallel.
STEP 02
Hero — Value Proposition
First screen communicates AI-powered differentiation from OpenMetadata OSS. Headline anchors on governance outcomes, not technical capabilities.
STEP 03
Social Proof — Customer Logos
Fortune 500 logos and outcome-paired testimonials build credibility before the visitor reads a product feature. Trust precedes persuasion.
STEP 04
Features Deep Dive & Pricing
Product capability sections layered by stakeholder — AI agents for data teams, compliance for security, ROI metrics for economic buyers. Pricing page surfaces tier comparison.
STEP 05
Demo Request Form
Qualifying demo form collects company size, use case, and timeline — filtering for enterprise fit while keeping friction low enough for high-intent visitors to complete.

08 — Toolkits

Tools & Workflow

Tools and methods used throughout the Collate enterprise website design process — from buyer research through design and CRO iteration.

🎨FigmaUI Design
🗺️FigJamJourney Mapping
🔥HotjarHeatmaps & CRO
📣HubSpot CMSCMS & Lead Capture
📝NotionResearch & Docs

Design Process

Selling trust,
systematically

A five-phase process designed around enterprise buyer psychology — from competitive audit through conversion-optimised launch with sales team alignment at every step.

01
Competitive Audit
Analysed 12 enterprise data platform websites across messaging, visual language, social proof systems, and CTA strategy.
02
Buyer Research
Interviews with data leaders from enterprise organisations to map what they look for, what creates hesitation, and what signals credibility.
03
Messaging Architecture
Worked with the CEO and VP Sales to develop a brand message hierarchy: primary positioning, product pillars, and proof points for each stakeholder persona.
04
Visual Identity & Accessibility
Designed a visual system that felt premium and technically credible — deep violet palette, clean typographic hierarchy, and forward-looking motion elements. Enterprise buyers include a meaningful proportion of users with accessibility needs, and the enterprise procurement context often includes accessibility audits as part of vendor evaluation. All colour pairings pass WCAG AA. The primary violet on white exceeds AAA at the standard display sizes used in the site.
05
Launch & Optimise
Shipped with full analytics, hotjar, and a CRO plan. Iterated the demo CTA placement and messaging 4 times in the first quarter based on funnel data.

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