Korn Ferry · Product Suite · Navigation Strategy
Waffles.
The story of aligning and implementing a modern app-based navigation strategy.
The story of aligning and implementing a modern app-based navigation strategy.
The Korn Ferry Product Suite navigation had a scalability problem. The solution was hiding in plain sight — inside every Google account.
As the enterprise product suite grew, so did the main navigation. Every new product release added another item to an already-crowded top bar. User behavior data told us something the nav didn't: people don't navigate section to section. They have a workflow, and they stick to it.
The waffle menu — that familiar 3×3 grid of dots used by Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn — offered a scalable, recognized solution. The challenge wasn't the pattern itself. It was getting alignment, building the right prototypes, and proving it with data.
The existing navigation surfaced everything — which sounds good in theory but created real usability friction as the product suite expanded.
"Language can be a barrier, while images are able to communicate volumes."
The 3×3 grid of dots — used by Google, Microsoft Office 365, and LinkedIn — had already done the hard work of building user familiarity. Similar to the hamburger menu's trajectory, the waffle icon was becoming shorthand for "find more products here." Borrowing a recognized pattern reduces the learning curve and lends enterprise credibility.
Waffle menu open — subscribed applications + utilities + upsell panel for non-subscribed products
No text labels within the menu. Dashboard/Home and User Settings housed inside the waffle. Upsell apps represented with icons only — leaner, more visual, higher cognitive load.
Labels clearly separate application categories. Settings moved outside the menu to its own icon. Upsell area is more visual and descriptive — lower friction for exploration and conversion.
Rather than relying on icon recognition alone, the waffle carries a "Menu" text label during the initial rollout period — reducing risk and easing the behaviour shift for existing users unfamiliar with the pattern.
The upsell panel within the waffle uses a cleaner, more visual interface that drives users toward additional product details without overwhelming the primary navigation experience.
A dedicated home icon within the waffle — in addition to the main KF logo — gives users a reliable, always-visible return path to their dashboard regardless of where they are in the product.
The waffle menu is structured in sections — separating core subscribed applications from utility tools. This creates hierarchy and helps users quickly scan to what they need without parsing an undifferentiated list.
The existing collapsed navigation pattern required a large header area that ate into usable screen real estate. By integrating the new KF Digital Brand and restructuring the header, we brought content significantly higher on the page — letting users immerse in the product immediately, rather than scrolling past chrome to get to substance.
Eliminated collapsed navigation
Removed the pattern that forced users to expand a collapsed nav on every page load
Consistent across hub and interior pages
One header structure scales across every product in the suite, creating a unified experience
KF Digital Brand integration
The new header aligns with the refreshed brand identity, creating visual coherence across the full product suite
Proposing a navigation pattern was the easy part. Getting a large enterprise organisation to agree on changing something as fundamental as global navigation required research, prototypes, testing data, and patience. The waffle was always the right answer — but it needed to be proven, not just presented.
The strongest argument for the waffle menu wasn't our own prototype data — it was Google and Microsoft using it at scale. Existing user mental models are a design asset. When a pattern is already understood, you inherit its familiarity rather than building it from scratch.
The insight that users don't navigate section to section — that they arrive at their product and stay — fundamentally changed the argument for the waffle. The data made the case that surfacing everything in the main nav wasn't serving users. It was serving the organization's desire to be visible.
Running Prototype A and B in parallel with identical tasks was the right call. The labelled version won not because labels are always better — but because for enterprise users navigating unfamiliar patterns, language and structure reduce cognitive load at exactly the moment it matters most.