Cognex

Cognex’s marketing, support, and product catalog lived in separate properties that didn’t agree with each other. The catalog is too large for any buyer to remember.

Factory operators and procurement engineers search by model number. The site made them browse like consumers.

I helped lead a multi-property redesign built around how buyers actually search, unifying cognex.com marketing, MyCognex support, and the information architecture connecting them.

• A single information architecture now connects cognex.com marketing, MyCognex support, and the product catalog, accepted by engineering, marketing, and customer success.
• The catalog and navigation were restructured around how buyers actually search, verified through moderated research in four languages with factory operators and procurement engineers.
• The support hub shipped essentially one-to-one with the designs, live at support.cognex.com.

Moderated testing in English, Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean showed the same pattern every time: users went straight to the search bar, typed “DM375,” and judged us by the results. Many ignored the navigation we thought was most important.

Users called the old account profile “wasted space.” They wanted a description and a date before downloading a large file. Most came for documentation and drawings, so that is what we designed for.

Few users touched the filters, so we couldn’t rely on them for discovery. The Product Finder steps users from product type to the exact file, showing type and size before the click, with a path for discontinued products.

This is the live, working version. Pick a category and try it.

It would have been easier to remove the navigation. Instead we made it more useful: a Product Finder entry point in Products, applications organized the way people think, and articles inside the menus, not just links.

Support moved onto the product itself. Contact Sales, Download Data Sheet, and View Product Support sit at the top of complex pages, designed to answer questions before they become tickets.

The MyCognex hub starts with a search and adapts to each user. Members see their registered products, open cases, and favorites. Everyone else sees popular and recent resources.

The shipped hub matched the designs essentially one-to-one.

The visual system reads beams of light as color gradients over black, white, and Cognex yellow. The direction was tested with real users, from category newcomers to automation experts.

One visual language with two very different jobs: factory operators on cognex.com, procurement engineers inside MyCognex. I helped define the system and turn it into a documented library both properties share.

We kept the mega-nav for people who browse, and made search and the guided Product Finder the main tools for everyone else.

Search-first design still leaves one gap: the user who can’t name what they own. We prototyped an AI assistant, ai12z, for exactly those queries. “I bought one, but can’t remember the name.”

The concept pairs a natural-language answer engine with the same search-first foundation, designed to deflect support tickets by resolving imperfect questions in a high-stakes manufacturing environment. It is a forward bet on where enterprise support is heading.

Live at cognex.com and support.cognex.com. A clearer path from discovery to support, with engineering, marketing, and customer success working from one system.

• Co-led experience design across two properties and three internal organizations (engineering, marketing, and customer success), from user research through visual production.
• Ran moderated research in English, Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean, and synthesized it into the information architecture both sites now share.
• Guided the visual direction through three tested concepts to a client-approved system and a documented component library.