Redesigning how people find and choose courses on Reed.co.uk. The goal was simple: get people to the right course faster, and give them enough information to commit.
Context
Reed.co.uk is best known as a job board, but the platform hosts thousands of online courses, from CPD certifications to professional development. The courses marketplace is a meaningful revenue stream, but users were landing on search pages and leaving without enrolling.
My brief: find out why users weren't converting, redesign the course card to communicate value faster, and fix the search flow so people could find the right course without friction.
The problem
"I can see there are loads of courses but I can't tell which one is right for me without clicking into every single one."
User research participant, 2022Analytics showed users landing on course search pages, scrolling, then leaving without clicking anything. Session recordings and heat maps told us why, they were looking for information the cards simply didn't show.
Three things were missing:
Before and after
The original card had a title, a provider name, and a price. Nothing else. The redesign surfaces trust signals, level, duration and a direct CTA, all within the same footprint.
No rating · No level · No social proof · Generic CTA
Rating + review count · Level tag · Duration · Social proof · Discount + clear price · Add to basket CTA
Design decisions
Before designing anything, I ran a content audit across 12 competitor course platforms (Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, Skillshare). I identified which pieces of information power-users actually look at before enrolling. That list became the spec for the new card.
Discovery flow
Phase two was the discovery flow itself, filters, sorting and the zero-results state. Users were struggling with filters that gave no feedback, a default sort that felt arbitrary, and a blank page when filters returned nothing.
"I added three filters and got zero results. I thought the site was broken."
Usability testing, Round 2Results
Search abandonment dropped 28%, users who previously left without clicking anything were now engaging with results. The support ticket reduction proved the design was solving the right problem: users were enrolling in the correct courses first time rather than requesting refunds after the fact.