Timeline
My Role
Team Makeup
Client
CONTEXT
A client company sought to celebrate their centennial anniversary with an engaging internal hub. The goal was to highlight their rich history while providing a space to share fresh content throughout the year.
The project, however, came with its challenges:
Unclear Requirements: Key details about the hub’s purpose and functionality were vague, requiring significant discovery work.
A Looming Timeline: A tight deadline demanded rapid design iterations and effective collaboration.
Major Last-Minute Changes: Late-stage pivots tested the team's adaptability and alignment.
To overcome these obstacles, I leaned on design as a problem-solving tool—clarifying priorities, aligning stakeholders, and ultimately delivering a successful solution that met the client’s vision.
UNDERSTANDING THE GOALS
It Started with Murky Waters
Coming into the project the client team did not have a clear idea of what they wanted, just a collection of loose content and ideas to explore.
What We Had to Work With:
Early Concept Wireframes: Incomplete drafts from another consultancy, lacking clear structure or purpose.
Content in Progress: Rough drafts of articles, videos, and historical factoids with no cohesive narrative.
A Tight Deadline: Just three months to design AND develop the entire site.
What We Needed to Define and Align On:
Scope: What would be included in the initial site launch, and what would be deferred for later?
Design Requirements: What visual and functional elements would best support the client’s goals?
Project Framework: How could we align all stakeholders and execute efficiently within the time constraints?
DESIGN
Laying it all Out with a Sitemap
To ensure clarity and alignment, I created a sitemap that served dual purposes:
Visualizing the Proposed Site: Helping the client team understand all the key sections and features of the centennial hub.
Content Mapping: Outlining the content requirements for each section, which guided the client in planning and producing articles, videos, and factoids.
The sitemap became a critical tool in driving alignment, acting as both a planning guide and a checkpoint for progress.
Organizing the Site by Topic
With the content timeline set to be finalized after the design phase, I collaborated closely with the content team to make sense of the evolving material. By understanding their perspective on the content, we developed a structure that separated the site into four storyline topics:
These topics acted as thematic pathways, guiding users through the company’s history in an intuitive way.
The structure also provided the flexibility needed for content extensibility, allowing the client team to add new material throughout the centennial year.
This organizational framework ensured that the site remained both engaging and scalable, balancing storytelling with practical content management.
Fostering Engagement with Social Features
To create a more engaging and community-driven experience, we integrated custom social features such as like buttons and icons, share buttons, and view counts into the site.
These elements are designed to encourage user interaction, celebrate popular content, and provide subtle feedback loops to users about the value of their contributions.
Making History Special: Navigating Constraints to Create Something Unique
Dynamic Widgets: Keeping the Celebration Alive Year-Round
From the outset, we knew the content team planned to release a steady stream of facts and stories throughout the centennial year. To showcase this dynamic content and encourage users to return regularly, I collaborated closely with the developers to design three custom flexible widgets for the homepage.
Highlighting Key Content: These widgets were built to dynamically display featured facts, stories, or events, ensuring fresh and engaging material was always front and center.
Scalable Design: Each widget was designed to be easily updated and reused, accommodating a variety of content formats without requiring significant development effort.
Driving Engagement: By rotating content in these widgets, users had a reason to return frequently, keeping the centennial celebration alive throughout the year.
The Last Minute Pivot: Redesigning the Visuals in Record Time
Then an unexpected turn… With only two weeks left in the project, and the visual designs approved and development more than halfway complete, a separate client marketing team introduced a new visual identity for the centennial celebration campaign.
This required a complete visual redesign of the site to align with the updated campaign direction.
By quickly assembling extra design resources to brainstorm alternative concepts, I led a rapid iteration process that delivered a new visual identity within just three days. This adjustment seamlessly integrated the celebration’s updated style across the site.
The client team was thrilled with the new direction and praised the swift and effective turnaround!
Initial Visual Design
Final Design
Reflection
Final Thoughts: When Design Leads the Way
Design was instrumental in transforming a project with unclear requirements and scattered ideas into a cohesive and successful site, proving its power extends far beyond creating appealing visuals. This approach not only shaped the final deliverables but also highlighted how design can drive clarity, foster collaboration, and lead progress on project teams.
Design is a Guiding Force
These visuals structured conversations, uncovered gaps, and gave the team a shared direction to rally around. Starting with boxes and wireframes allowed the team to iterate quickly and visualize abstract ideas, fostering alignment even when initial requirements were unclear.
Flag When Help is Needed
Facing the need for an entirely new visual direction with only two weeks left in the project could have been overwhelming. But recognizing the need for additional help and quickly mobilizing external resources turned a potential crisis into an opportunity to deliver designs that wowed the client.
