There’s always room for improvement.
What is “what The font?”
WhatTheFont is a font recognition tool by MyFonts that helps users identify typefaces from images. While it had strong brand recall and a solid algorithm, the experience was outdated, clunky on mobile, and often left users without clear next steps. I led the redesign to transform WhatTheFont into a seamless, mobile-first tool that encourages discovery and drives conversion.z
Why redesign?
Visually dated
While the core technology behind WhatTheFont had improved over time, the interface hadn’t kept up. The design felt like a relic from early in my career—functional, but clearly dated. It lacked the polish, intuitiveness, and responsiveness users expect today.
High traffic
WhatTheFont accounted for 70% of all traffic on MyFonts, yet conversion remained below 0.1%. That gap between engagement and business impact highlighted a critical opportunity.
Demand from customers
There was increasing demand to integrate WhatTheFont into Monotype Fonts, our enterprise platform, so users could identify fonts and immediately use or license them from their subscription inventory.
LEt’s talk about the work now
Research
We interviewed 8 participants—all active users of WhatTheFont and professionals in design-related industries where identifying unique fonts is part of their workflow. These sessions helped us uncover expectations, frustrations, and moments of delight (or the lack of them).
Quantitative research
We dug into product analytics to identify drop-off points in the user journey. This helped us spot heuristic gaps—moments where the experience wasn’t aligning with user intent or expectations.
The key problems
Mismatch between name and experience
For a tool called WhatTheFont, users expected a fast, fun, and intuitive journey. The reality felt underwhelming and clunky—missing the energy its name promised.
Discovery issues
The majority of traffic came directly from Google, bypassing the broader MyFonts ecosystem. The experience didn’t encourage deeper exploration or discovery beyond the tool itself.
Lack of Scalability
The standalone web tool lacked flexibility. There was growing demand to make WhatTheFont:
- Available natively on mobile
- Embedded into Monotype Fonts, our enterprise platform
- Accessible via API widgets for partners and B2B use cases
PAGEVIEWS
27.42%
ECOM CONV RATE
12.79%
SESSIONS
9.91
REV/USER
8.41%
USERS
8.30%
AVG. ORDER VAL
5.29%
REVENUE
17.41%
BOUNCE RATE
16.43%
TRANSACTIONS
23.97%
AVG. SESSION DURATION
28.56%