My role
Senior Product Designer
Project type
Platform redesign / Design system implementation
Duration
Team
Industry
The community platform had grown organically over time, resulting in a visually visually inconsistent experience that no longer reflected the design standard expected of a modern cloud platform. With a new design system on the horizon, the question was not just how to reskin a site, but how to build a scalable, maintainable design foundation that could serve the platform for years to come.
Overview
The AWS Connected Community is a free digital platform built specifically for small and medium businesses looking to accelerate their growth through cloud technology. It brings together expert knowledge, peer learning, exclusive partner offers and direct access to cloud consultations in one place. When I joined the project (through Codurance), the platform had been live for some time but was due a significant visual overhaul tied to the rollout of their new design system. My role was to lead that transformation, rebuilding the platform component by component, page by page, while keeping the site live and functional throughout.
My Approach
The first thing I did was convene a workshop with the development team to understand the state of the codebase and agree on ways of working. This was important: the developers knew the site far better than I did, and the existing codebase was substantial. Rather than impose a design-led process on a team already deep in the weeds, I focused on aligning with them, making their lives easier and establishing shared processes for creating, updating and documenting components as we went.
I maintained our own working copy of the design system across two Figma files, and created a third file to house bespoke components that the platform required but that did not exist within the system. Keeping all three files clean, consistent and well documented while simultaneously delivering BAU design work was a constant juggling act, made more complex by the client's tendency to context switch frequently. Working within the structures of a large enterprise client meant that the big picture decisions came from above, and our role was largely to execute with care and precision. That said, I consistently looked for opportunities to contribute beyond the brief.
One of those contributions was a strategic user journey framework I developed, grounding it in a workshop we had conducted at the client's offices and drawing on my understanding of customer readiness stages in marketing. The framework organised the platform's content and user journeys across four stages: Get Inspired, for newcomers understanding what the platform could do for them; Build Knowledge, covering learning content, events and peer community; Take Action, focused on partner offers and expert consultations; and Explore Solutions, for users ready to make meaningful investment decisions. It was a piece of strategic thinking that reframed how the platform's content should be sequenced and surfaced, though like many of the recommendations we made, it was received positively but never formally actioned.
Key Design Decisions
Beyond the rebrand itself, three pieces of work stand out. The first was a redesign of the Events experience. The existing booking flow contained a critical usability flaw: new and signed-out users were prompted to book an event, directed through the sign-up flow, and then, having completed registration, assumed the booking was done. Most never returned to press the Book button a second time. Identifying and fixing that single issue had a direct and immediate impact on event registrations. I also proposed a more ambitious reimagining of the Events experience, including a dynamic calendar view, improved search functionality and a preference-based event recommendation widget, though those proposals remained as recommendations.
The second was the Admin CMS redesign, an initiative I took on entirely off my own back. The platform's content management system had been built by engineers over time and showed it. My goal was first to improve the visual consistency and layout, but the work quickly grew into something more substantial: a complete redesign of every component and page, a new admin dashboard that had not previously existed, clear role-based journeys, and a stats section tailored to each user's credentials and responsibilities. Close to a hundred frames later, the result was an experience that was not only cleaner but genuinely more useful to the people relying on it daily. The response from admin users was strongly positive.
The third was the navigation and information architecture work, where I proposed a complete overhaul of the site's sitemap and user journeys alongside visual improvements to the existing navigation. The visual changes were taken on board. The structural proposals were not, which is a pattern I became familiar with over the course of the project.
18 months
working embedded within the Connected Community team
3
Figma design system files maintained and documented throughout
~50
Admin CMS screens & components redesigned from the ground up
Design system components: A snapshot of the design system as maintained on our end, showing the range of components built, adapted and documented throughout the project. Every element on the site traced back to this file.
Admin dashboard redesign: The new admin dashboard, a screen that did not previously exist. Role-based journeys, a comprehensive stats section and a clear content management interface, replacing what had previously been a collection of loosely connected screens built by engineers over time.
User journey framework: A strategic framework mapping the platform's content and user journeys across four stages of readiness: Get Inspired, Build Knowledge, Take Action and Explore Solutions. Each stage defined the content types, features and calls to action most relevant to where a user was in their cloud journey.
Event booking flow: Mapping the existing event booking journey to identify where users were dropping off. The key pain point: new users completing the sign-up flow and assuming their event was already booked, never returning to complete the actual booking step. A simple but impactful fix once the problem was clearly defined.
Improved event booking experience, hi-fi High fidelity screens showing the redesigned event booking flow, from the event page through sign-in, sign-up and confirmation. Each step simplified and clearly signposted so users always knew where they were in the process and what came next.
Design system pattern documentation: An example of the detailed pattern documentation maintained throughout the project, covering anatomy, variants, usage guidelines and real-world context. Keeping this level of rigour across design and engineering was essential to ensuring the two stayed in sync.
Figma design system file structure: A look at how the design system files were organised internally, with clear naming conventions, changelogs and component categorisation across patterns. Structure like this is what makes a design system usable rather than just complete.
generative AI content page: A high fidelity desktop design for a generative AI content hub, one of several new pages created as the platform expanded its offering into emerging technology. Built entirely within the design system while accommodating a content format that had not previously existed on the site.
Reflection
Working on a project of this scale, for a client of this stature, over an extended period teaches you things that greenfield projects cannot. It teaches you patience, precision and the discipline of doing careful, considered work within constraints you did not set and cannot change. It also teaches you the limits of what design can achieve without genuine partnership.
The most frustrating moments were not the technical ones. They were the moments when solid, well-reasoned design thinking, the user journey framework, the navigation overhaul, the Events experience proposals, failed to gain traction not because they were wrong but because the environment was not set up to act on them. I could have pushed harder on some of those. I did not always, and that is something I carry forward.
What I am proud of is the quality and consistency of the work that did ship, and the Admin CMS redesign in particular, a self-initiated piece that went far beyond what was asked and made a tangible difference to the people using it. What this project ultimately taught me is that thriving inside a large enterprise environment requires a completely different mindset to anything a greenfield project demands. Knowing when to push, when to let go, how to earn trust incrementally, and how to keep doing quality work even when the conditions are not ideal, that is not something any brief can prepare you for. I came out of it a more patient, more pragmatic designer, and I think a better one for it.
Get Figma Version