Overview

MASV.io is a file transfer service designed for professional media teams that work with large, time-sensitive files. One of its most powerful offerings is Portals, a branded upload site that allows businesses to collect files from contributors and collaborators at scale. Portals had become one of MASV’s largest revenue drivers, but adoption stalled due to usability challenges. I led the redesign of the Portals experience, creating a scalable framework that significantly reduced friction and unlocked growth.

Situation

The Portals feature was originally built as a custom solution for a single enterprise client, then gradually expanded. While effective in small-scale, high-touch contexts, the experience was not designed for broader business adoption.

Onboarding friction: The setup process was overly complex and intimidating for new users.
Unclear value proposition: Many customers did not understand what “Portals” meant or how to use the feature.
Limited visibility and control: Existing clients lacked the ability to track usage or set limits on file submissions.
Stalled growth: Metrics showed a flatline in new Portal creation despite strong interest and appeal.

The challenge was to reimagine Portals as a self-service, value-driven experience that could scale to meet MASV’s growth ambitions.

Task

As design lead, I partnered with Sales, Customer Success, Product Managers and Engineering to reframe Portals into an intuitive, accessible, and scalable product.

Key initiatives included:

Instant Portal Option for Non-Technical Users
Introduced an Instant Portal creation path for clients who only needed the core function of requesting and receiving files. This reduced setup complexity while keeping the Custom Portal option for advanced users.
Completion Overlay for Successful Portal Creation
Designed a confirmation overlay with actionable next steps such as “Copy Portal Link,” “Send Upload Request,” and “Preview Portal.” This reinforced success and drove immediate feature adoption.
Navigation and Discovery Improvements
Renamed the navigation entry from “Portals” to “Receive Files with Portals,” updated the iconography, and introduced contextual tooltips to clearly communicate the feature’s purpose.
Usage Dashboard for File Tracking
Built a dashboard to give clients greater visibility and control over feature usage such as with Portals file ingestion. Features included transfer data tracking, file receipt limits, and usage alerts with notifications.
Testing and Implementation
Facilitated user testing and quality control by partnering closely with engineering throughout the implementation process through to final shipment.

Results

The redesign had an immediate and measurable impact on adoption:

2x increase in new Portals created, improving activation metrics significantly
Simplified onboarding reduced friction for first-time users
Increased retention and satisfaction through improved visibility and control features

Portals became more accessible to a wider audience while retaining its depth for power users, reinforcing its role as a critical revenue driver for MASV.

Reflection

This project underscored the importance of aligning business priorities with user needs. By simplifying the entry point for non-technical users while preserving flexibility for advanced customers, I helped reposition Portals as a scalable growth engine. A major lesson was the value of progressive complexity: design systems should allow users to start simple and unlock advanced features as they grow. This principle has since influenced my broader approach to designing scalable enterprise tools.

Team

Lead Designer: Paul Methot
Product Managers: Ricky Cheung, George Vulic
Customer Success & Sales: Matthew Sobkowicz, Brad Alford, Jon Riis, Zaheed Jaffer
Engineering: Denys Demchenko, Yunis Rajab, Ernilo Dallagnolo Junior