Legacy MarTech Migration
Project highlights
- Stakeholder Influence
- Product Strategy & Research
- Establishing a User Testing Culture
- Marketing Automation Workflow Design
- Scaling of a Design System
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The client
My client (Client X) was a leading marketing technology provider, focussed on serving a range of e-commerce clients across Retail, Travel and the Luxury market with remarketing solutions to drive online revenue and increase their digital brand reach.
At the outset of my engagement, Client X offered a range of product solutions across 3 distinct areas:
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Marketing consent management:
Solutions that ensured compliance with various global regulations. -
Personalized website pop-ups:
Dynamic pop-ups triggered by online visitor behavior and identification. -
Targeted cross-channel communication:
Email and SMS campaigns designed to re-engage website abandoners, encourage post-purchase actions, and drive upsell opportunities.
The existing product solutions were typically developed and deployed by internal development and support teams in response to specific client briefs, and delivered via 3 platforms: 2 legacy systems, which presented significant maintenance challenges for our engineering teams, and a newer product (Product A) intended to replace the legacy systems, which lacked internal support and was plagued by design inconsistencies, usability problems and accessibility issues.
The project brief
For many months the business had been operating without any designers in the technology team, and there were divided opinions around the business as to the value and true meaning of UX design, Accessibility, and UI design.
I was engaged by the Chief Technology Officer and Lead Product Manager to help grow a culture of support and internally promote the value of centralising all the product solutions into 1 central SaaS product, initially intended for use by our Client Services team so that they would be able to serve clients faster, and free up the time of our development and support teams to focus on other business needs.
Client feedback
From day one, Claire made critical contributions to our Product Strategy, driving impactful evolution in our products. Her skill in translating complex user insights, business objectives, and technical constraints into effective solutions consistently exceeded expectations. Notably, her work on our campaign builder introduced new capabilities that elevated our client offerings and improved user experience by 20%.
- Damaris Andujo, Product Manager LinkedIn.
Problems and challenges
Upon joining the team, I embarked on a comprehensive assessment of the existing product landscape. This involved gathering insights from various stakeholders, including engineering managers, support developers, client account managers, product owners, product engineers, data analysts, marketing professionals, and the internal client services design team.
Through these interactions, I sought to understand existing challenges, usability issues, and the current state of UX and UI knowledge and practices within the organization. I also explored existing processes and identified opportunities for improvement.
Furthermore, I conducted a thorough analysis of competing client solutions, gathering valuable client feedback on our existing offerings.
Based on these findings, several key issues emerged:
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Low UX maturity:
The organization exhibited a low UX maturity with no usability-testing culture and inconsistent design practices. Design was not integrated into the established ways of working and often fell behind other priorities. -
Disconnected product development:
Account managers expressed concerns that direct client interaction with the product team would lead to unrealistic expectations and unfulfilled promises, blocking access. -
Brand inconsistency & accessibility issues:
Visual discrepancies existed between the products and the brand identity. Accessibility issues were prevalent, and an outdated design system was not consistently applied across products. -
Poor user experience & high learning curve:
Existing product solutions were often difficult to use and navigate, resulting in a steep learning curve for new employees. -
Limited flexibility & inefficiency:
Overly complex and rigid solutions required significant manual effort for client-specific customizations, impacting service delivery times and internal productivity. -
Resistance to change:
Concerns arose within internal teams that a SaaS-focused approach would diminish the role of account managers and client implementation teams. -
Siloed development & limited design support:
3 Agile engineering squads operated in silo, creating a challenging environment for a single designer to provide adequate support across all teams, and impacting user consistency on the product. -
Product A challenges:
Product A, intended to replace legacy systems, suffered from significant visual and accessibility issues and there were concerns that it was perpetuating the usability problems of its predecessors.
Cultivating a culture of UX support
To effectively address the identified problems, I recognized that a sole focus on product design would be insufficient. To ensure a successful migration to a central SaaS product, design processes needed to be implemented in alignment with the organization's evolving maturity. This approach would not only address existing usability issues but also prevent their migration to the new system.
To effectively enhance the user experience of our product, it was crucial to foster a deeper understanding of UX principles within the technology team. This would enable us to track the value of UX improvements, build a strong foundation for scaling our design system and team, and ultimately create a culture of UX support across the organization.
To achieve this, I implemented a two-pronged approach:
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Internal advocacy:
I began by demystifying UX concepts through internal knowledge-sharing sessions. I emphasized the value of UX within the Technology teams, securing support for integrating usability testing and user research into our design processes. -
Broader engagement:
I expanded this effort by promoting the importance of UX through company-wide presentations and regular updates during Agile Show & Tell sessions. This increased visibility and generated broader support for our UX initiatives.
As a result of these efforts I secured;
- Budget for consumer research into e-commerce behaviour (to inform our solutions)
- Access to clients for first-hand product user interviews
- Participation of internal account managers in usability testing sessions on both existing products and prototypes of the new product intended for their use
- Funding for a new UI designer, whom I trained and mentored during the project
- Participation from engineers and data analysts in UX workshops that showcased usability test findings, and encouraged a diverse range of contributors to help identify technical solutions to real user problems
Slide from a presentation given on the value of UX
Design strategy
Collaborating with the Lead Product Manager and CTO, I dedicated my primary focus to a single product delivery squad. My primary objective was to migrate product solutions from one of our legacy products into Product A.
Recognizing that Product A's existing user interface lacked a strong foundation, we prioritized a redesign. This initiative aimed to:
- Establish a visually on-brand "marketing automation workflow" UI.
- Address existing usability issues.
- Create a scalable foundation for future cross-channel SaaS marketing solutions.
- Ensure full compliance with WCAG AA accessibility standards.
To foster collaboration and avoid silos, I actively engaged with other product delivery teams through sprint reviews and maintained regular communication with product owners. This proactive approach ensured that the needs of other teams and product solutions were considered throughout the design process. I also collaborated closely with engineers and data specialists to mitigate the risk of technical debt and ensure that the foundations we were laying would support future scalability.
Prioritizing a user-centric approach, I conducted regular discovery workshops and usability testing sessions with internal account managers, the primary users of our product. These sessions, focused on both existing products and low-fidelity prototypes of the new product, aimed to identify and address usability challenges. Key UX metrics, such as task completion times, user experience ratings, and visual appeal ratings, were tracked to monitor progress.
Slides from a Sprint Review session following usability testing of the prototype
To ensure our solutions delivered maximum client value, I conducted regular competitor benchmarking and facilitated user interviews with clients. In collaboration with product owners, I explored their most and least valued features and their broader business needs. This approach ensured that we focused on migrating solutions that would deliver the greatest commercial impact.
During the project, I collaborated with a new UI designer to establish a flexible set of Figma UI components. These components were translated into coded components and supported by comprehensive design documentation. By scaling the use of this design system across multiple teams, we addressed accessibility and inconsistency issues throughout the broader product ecosystem, extending beyond the core workflow UI.
Example UI component set-up in Figma, with interactive state variants
Ensuring a scalable product vision
As the project evolved and migration to one central product completed, I also worked closely on Product Vision & Strategy to evolve the product further and champion the idea of a truly SaaS focussed product that would open up additional revenue streams by offering lower-budget clients hands-on access to the product itself, enabling our Client Services team to dedicate their time to Enterprise level clients.
To do this, I drew upon first and second hand research, partnering with the Leading Product Mananger to create a strategic product roadmap aligned to R.I.C.E feature prioritisations, and pitch it to our C-level board and investors, securing support for further development of the product.
The outcomes
- Improved internal user satisfaction, which increased from an average rating of 2/5 'Difficult' on the initial product to 4/5 'Easy' with the new workflow design
- Financial cost savings through successful migration to 1 centralised platform and closing off of legacy systems
- Improved internal processes that optimised productivity and client service timelines
- Support for product focussed ways of working, which focussed on delivering quality and value of product features over quantity of features
- Reduced bugs and improved product performance
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