Case Study

Case Study

Case Study

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Redesigning Navigation & Taxonomy to Scale with Brooklinen’s Growing Assortment

As Brooklinen’s assortment expanded meaningfully in Bedding and Bath, our legacy navigation and site taxonomy began to show its age. Originally designed for a sheets-first business, the structure no longer supported the depth and variety introduced by top-of-bed layers, new fabrications, and a rapidly growing Bath category. To address this, we launched a comprehensive update to our global navigation, taxonomy, and category landing experiences — all with the goal of improving product discoverability, education, and business scalability.

The Problem

Brooklinen’s product expansion created customer experience challenges:

  • Navigation overload: With more categories and subcategories, our menus became cluttered, leading to user confusion — especially on mobile.

  • Unclear product differentiation: Customers struggled to understand the differences between similar products.

  • Inconsistent taxonomy: Our backend wasn’t keeping up with our launch cadence, making it burdensome to merchandise.

  • No top-of-category storytelling: Users had no centralized place to explore a category, compare options, or learn about fabrics — hurting cross-sell and confidence.

Goals

  1. Improve navigation clarity and hierarchy across Bedding and Bath.

  2. Introduce top-of-category collection pages to drive entry, education, and conversion.

  3. Restructure our taxonomy system to be scalable and consistent across categories and teams.

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Key Features
🧭 Revamped Global Navigation

  • Simplified menus centered around how customers think about dressing a bed: Sheets, Top Layers, Pillows, Protectors, Bundles.

  • Introduced visual navigation cues to reduce decision fatigue.

  • Built flexible modules to support seasonal pushes or new fabric launches.

🗂️ Restructured Site Taxonomy

  • Audited and redefined all product categories and subcategories.

  • Cleaned up overlapping collections.

  • Standardized naming conventions and metafields to support merchandising, search, and analytics.

📚 Top-of-Category Collection Pages

  • Created destination pages for each core category.

  • Each page included:

    • Shoppable tiles by product type or fabric

    • Cross-category education modules (“What’s the difference between percale and sateen?”)

    • Bundled offerings and fabric stories

Execution

  • Ran customer journey mapping exercises to understand points of confusion in bedding shopping.

  • Partnered with creative and UX teams to wireframe navigation and collection page designs.

  • Collaborated with engineering and data teams to ensure taxonomy changes were reflected across search, merchandising tools, and analytics platforms.

  • Validated designs with heatmaps, session recordings, and customer feedback loops.

Key Features
🧭 Revamped Global Navigation

  • Simplified menus centered around how customers think about dressing a bed: Sheets, Top Layers, Pillows, Protectors, Bundles.

  • Introduced visual navigation cues to reduce decision fatigue.

  • Built flexible modules to support seasonal pushes or new fabric launches.

🗂️ Restructured Site Taxonomy

  • Audited and redefined all product categories and subcategories.

  • Cleaned up overlapping collections.

  • Standardized naming conventions and metafields to support merchandising, search, and analytics.

📚 Top-of-Category Collection Pages

  • Created destination pages for each core category.

  • Each page included:

    • Shoppable tiles by product type or fabric

    • Cross-category education modules (“What’s the difference between percale and sateen?”)

    • Bundled offerings and fabric stories

Execution

  • Ran customer journey mapping exercises to understand points of confusion in bedding shopping.

  • Partnered with creative and UX teams to wireframe navigation and collection page designs.

  • Collaborated with engineering and data teams to ensure taxonomy changes were reflected across search, merchandising tools, and analytics platforms.

  • Validated designs with heatmaps, session recordings, and customer feedback loops.

Key Features
🧭 Revamped Global Navigation

  • Simplified menus centered around how customers think about dressing a bed: Sheets, Top Layers, Pillows, Protectors, Bundles.

  • Introduced visual navigation cues to reduce decision fatigue.

  • Built flexible modules to support seasonal pushes or new fabric launches.

🗂️ Restructured Site Taxonomy

  • Audited and redefined all product categories and subcategories.

  • Cleaned up overlapping collections.

  • Standardized naming conventions and metafields to support merchandising, search, and analytics.

📚 Top-of-Category Collection Pages

  • Created destination pages for each core category.

  • Each page included:

    • Shoppable tiles by product type or fabric

    • Cross-category education modules (“What’s the difference between percale and sateen?”)

    • Bundled offerings and fabric stories

Execution

  • Ran customer journey mapping exercises to understand points of confusion in bedding shopping.

  • Partnered with creative and UX teams to wireframe navigation and collection page designs.

  • Collaborated with engineering and data teams to ensure taxonomy changes were reflected across search, merchandising tools, and analytics platforms.

  • Validated designs with heatmaps, session recordings, and customer feedback loops.

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Results (Post-Launch)

  • +34% increase in CTR to top-layer product pages from navigation

  • +38% lift in Bedding category conversion rate

  • +9% increase in AOV from cross-category purchases on collection pages

  • Improved mobile navigation performance, with reduced exit rates on category entry points

Final Thoughts

This navigation and taxonomy overhaul laid the foundation for Brooklinen to scale within Bedding in a way that felt clear, modern, and elevated. By helping customers find what they need faster — and understand the “why” behind each product — we created a more confident shopping experience while setting ourselves up to scale new fabrications, top-of-bed layers, and educational storytelling in a more efficient way.

Results (Post-Launch)

  • +34% increase in CTR to top-layer product pages from navigation

  • +38% lift in Bedding category conversion rate

  • +9% increase in AOV from cross-category purchases on collection pages

  • Improved mobile navigation performance, with reduced exit rates on category entry points

Final Thoughts

This navigation and taxonomy overhaul laid the foundation for Brooklinen to scale within Bedding in a way that felt clear, modern, and elevated. By helping customers find what they need faster — and understand the “why” behind each product — we created a more confident shopping experience while setting ourselves up to scale new fabrications, top-of-bed layers, and educational storytelling in a more efficient way.

Results (Post-Launch)

  • +34% increase in CTR to top-layer product pages from navigation

  • +38% lift in Bedding category conversion rate

  • +9% increase in AOV from cross-category purchases on collection pages

  • Improved mobile navigation performance, with reduced exit rates on category entry points

Final Thoughts

This navigation and taxonomy overhaul laid the foundation for Brooklinen to scale within Bedding in a way that felt clear, modern, and elevated. By helping customers find what they need faster — and understand the “why” behind each product — we created a more confident shopping experience while setting ourselves up to scale new fabrications, top-of-bed layers, and educational storytelling in a more efficient way.