How we build with data: Experimenting with Mixpanel’s new side nav

Mixpanel undertook a redesign of its navigation system to enhance user experience and increase engagement with its core features. Initially, the navigation was split between a top bar and a sidebar, which confused users. The redesign consolidated navigation into a single sidebar, which increased access to certain features like Lexicon but decreased the use of core reports. To address this, Mixpanel hypothesized that further streamlining the sidebar would improve access to these reports. They tested various changes, such as altering button colors, reorganizing dropdowns, and grouping similar features, through a multivariate experiment using their own Experimentation tools. The results showed that most changes positively impacted user engagement, except for combining "Experiments" and "Feature Flags," which reduced visibility. Ultimately, the successful changes led to a 12% increase in the creation of core reports and a 45% rise in the use of the Session Replay feature, with no negative user feedback on the new interface.