Website Revamp & Launch: UX Innovation Secures Critical Business Touchpoint
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The organization had approved a high-priority website redesign but lacked the internal development resource capacity to execute the build. This risked slowing market strategy. As the UX team within the Innovations Group, we treated this failure point as an innovation opportunity to bypass traditional bottlenecks.
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UX Lead & Project Manager
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By championing a platform shift and securing a critical budget, the UX team launched the site weeks ahead of internal estimates. Monthly visitors increased by 200%, and, critically, we established strategic UX ownership of a core business touchpoint.
The Strategic Approach: Innovation and Ownership
Platform Strategy, Budget, and Ownership Agenda
Faced with a resource stop, the project objective was clear: Launch the required website without relying on internal engineering and secure ownership of the touchpoint.
Platform Choice & Funding: We selected Webflow to enable direct design-to-build, treating it as a strategic, low-code solution. I collaborated with Marketing leadership to approve the necessary budget for the platform. This external funding validated our technical direction and secured the path forward outside of the central IT budget cycle.
Strategic Agenda: The core strategic goal was for the UX department to own the website touchpoint. This meant securing control over the experience, development, content flow, and future roadmap, ensuring the user experience remained the top priority, driven by our Innovations mandate.
Scope and Commitment: I immediately secured requirements and scope with Marketing. I then secured QA resources and lodged a deployment date for March, creating a fixed timeline and establishing clear project accountability.
Execution Timeline and Process Control
My leadership centered on rapid process deployment, effective delegation, and risk mitigation:
Rapid Skill Transfer (1-2 Weeks): I spent the first two weeks mastering Webflow and creating the website foundation and core templates.
Delegation and Mentorship: I delegated static page development to one designer, providing them with the templates and training them in Webflow development, effectively upskilling internal UX talent into full-stack contributors.
CMS Strategy: I personally built the CMS structure. I then delegated content migration, ensuring all necessary redirections from the old platform were secured.
Quality & Risk Mitigation: Due to shifts in QA priority, I created internal QA test cases for our team to use, guaranteeing quality control before the final User Acceptance Testing (UAT) was secured from Marketing and deployment.
Measured Outcomes
The strategic pivot delivered significant, measurable results:
Monthly Website Visitors: Increased from an average of 5,000 to 20,000, a 200% increase.
Time-to-Market: The website was launched on time/early, weeks faster than the estimated timeline if it had been built by the internal development team.
Content Dependency: Marketing is now 100% independent for content updates, eliminating a long-standing developer dependency.
Maintenance: The new platform supports easy maintenance and deployment with zero dependency on internal engineering resources.
Long-Term Governance and Innovation Group Ownership
The strategic agenda was realized: I became the long-term owner and main contact for the website. My responsibilities shifted to governance, including monitoring usage via analytics, managing improvement requests, and ensuring the UX integrity of all future page development. This solidified the website as a key touchpoint fully managed by the UX team within the Innovations Group, demonstrating our ability to drive technical and operational change.