Finding where participants
stopped showing up — and why.

Context

Beams ran a participant recruitment platform for research studies. Their problem wasn't acquiring participants — it was keeping them. Low retention rates meant incomplete studies, unreliable datasets, and eroding client trust. The platform itself was functional. The drop-off was happening in the experience.

Consulting Approach

The engagement began with a UX audit of the existing platform: walking through every step of the participant journey from initial signup through study completion, noting friction points, unclear instructions, and moments where motivation could reasonably collapse.

This was followed by stakeholder interviews with the Beams team and a review of available drop-off data to identify where participants were exiting and at what rate. The audit and data were triangulated against each other to prioritize which friction points were likely causing the most significant retention loss.

Deliverable

A strategic redesign recommendation: prioritized list of UX changes with rationale, wireframe sketches for the highest-impact flows, and a retention framework that distinguished between onboarding drop-off, mid-study abandonment, and re-engagement failure — each requiring a different design intervention.

Skills Applied

UX Audit · Stakeholder Interviews · Drop-off Analysis · Strategic Recommendations · Retention Optimization · Wireframing