RESEARCH
Reframing search as a discovery problem
Ran a competitive teardown, a qualitative study, and a heatmap audit to reframe the problem from "search" to "discovery."
The Situation
The Cisco Networking App Marketplace — recently rebranded from the Meraki Marketplace — is where customers and partners find pre-built integrations across Cisco's networking platforms. It's a large ecosystem: hundreds of partners and listings, tied to a meaningful share of Cisco's networking bookings.
But the site wasn't converting that scale into action. Demo requests, its core conversion event, had been flat for two years despite steady traffic, and usability testing scored it in "D" territory.
Search-first design was masking a discovery problem
The search bar dominated the homepage, and heatmaps showed people defaulting to it early — but there was no visibility into what they were actually searching for. The hero offered nothing to act on, and category filters reflected internal taxonomy instead of user intent. Browsing never stood a real chance against search.
The app-detail page was a liability at the moment it mattered most
Once someone landed on a listing, they had to wade through marketing copy to find the facts — compatibility, deployment effort, support — that would actually let them decide. The one clear next step, requesting a demo, asked for a live conversation before most visitors had done enough self-directed evaluation to want one.
Timeline
2025 Q4 - 2026 Q2
Stakeholders
Agency: MRM
Client: Cisco Networking & Marketplace Team
Product, marketing, and partner/ecosystem leads
Cross-functional collaborators
UX Research, web platform engineering
