UX CASE STUDY

Global Design System

Year: Sep 2023 - May 2024
My Role: UI/UX Design Lead
Client: Crowe Global and member firms

This project focused on building and evolving a global, Sitecore-based design system to support consistent, accessible, and scalable digital experiences across U.S. and international member firm websites. The work spanned redesign efforts, global enhancement requests, and foundational system development, with a strong emphasis on content author usability, modular flexibility, and cross-team collaboration.

The design system was created to support content migration, ongoing publishing, and long-term scalability, ensuring modules worked reliably across breakpoints, languages, and varying levels of content author expertise.

Process

Research & Discovery

  • Conducted a comprehensive audit of global firm websites to assess existing Sitecore module usage, identifying opportunities for consolidation, retirement, and enhancement.

  • Analyzed Zendesk tickets related to module issues and enhancement requests to prioritize system improvements based on real author pain points.

  • Partnered closely with U.S. and global digital content authors as primary users, gathering insight into authoring workflows, skill variability, and CMS usability challenges prior to implementation.

  • Aligned findings with brand requirements and industry benchmarks to ensure system consistency without sacrificing flexibility.

Design System & Sitecore Implementation

  • Designed and refined a modular component library aligned to Sitecore architecture, ensuring components were reusable, configurable, and resilient across desktop, tablet, and mobile breakpoints.

  • Built modules with content author usability as a core design principle, minimizing complexity while allowing flexibility for different content needs and skill levels.

  • Applied atomic design principles to establish a scalable system of foundational elements, components, and patterns that could support both redesign and migration efforts.

  • Collaborated closely with developers to ensure designs translated cleanly into Sitecore components, balancing UX intent with technical feasibility.

  • Designed modules to support both left-to-right and right-to-left languages, enabling global adoption across diverse regions.

  • Led a small team of contract UX designers, managing roadmap planning and tracking progress in Azure DevOps to maintain momentum and transparency.

Testing, Documentation & Enablement

  • Facilitated usability reviews and feedback sessions with content authors to validate ease of use, clarity, and efficiency within the Sitecore authoring experience.

  • Partnered with development to generate Lighthouse performance reports and usage analytics to evaluate module performance, adoption, and effectiveness.

  • Authored technical documentation, UX best practices, and content guidance to support consistent implementation and empower authors during content migration and ongoing publishing.

  • Supported rollout through training sessions and clear documentation to ensure smooth adoption across U.S. and global member firms.

Outcomes

Results

  • Increased a brand consistency, efficiency, collaboration, and user satisfaction globally.

  • Project deliverables included a unified and updated component library, foundational components, documentation, training, communication strategy, adoption strategy, design style guide.

Reflections

  • This project reinforced the importance of designing for CMS realities, not just front-end visuals. Prioritizing content author usability, clear documentation, and close collaboration with developers ensured the design system could scale globally while remaining practical, performant, and easy to maintain—establishing a strong foundation for future enhancements and innovation.