New Economy Forum Website Redesign + New Branding Experience

Challenge

With a tight deadline to launch a refreshed web presence by Q3 2025, the organization faced a fragmented and outdated brand experience across its user journey. The content strategy lacked clear hierarchy, making it difficult to communicate institutional impact or stand out in a competitive landscape. My challenge was to align UX design with marketing strategy, ensuring clarity, differentiation, and measurable engagement.

Discovery

I kicked off with a discovery phase to understand the team’s vision and the broader goals for the web products. The organization’s inherent complexity meant alignment before design was non-negotiable. To focus efforts, we narrowed the scope to the annual forum journey, prioritizing the most critical user interactions. This allowed us to address high-impact challenges efficiently and set the stage for a faster launch.

Planning the Journey Structure

Next, I mapped out the journey structure and user flows for multiple roles, each requiring different access levels to tools and forum information. By validating these flows early with flowcharts and team workshops, we reduced the risk of costly rework and streamlined development. This structured approach ensured a cohesive, user-focused experience while keeping the project on track for launch.

Flowchart

Wireframes

Once the sitemap and journey roadmap were confirmed, I moved on to wireframing each screen to explore layout and user flow. Given resource constraints, I opted for high-fidelity wireframes inspired by the legacy site. This approach allowed us to quickly prototype different user flows without getting bogged down in visual design details, accelerating the project for a Phase One launch on time.

Phase One Launch

Below is an example of the New Economy Homepage high-fidelity wireframe, adapted from the original design.

To support the 2025 digital campaign launching in summer 2025, we prioritized delivering a first version that covered all essential functionality. The UI redesign was deferred to Phase Two, allowing us to focus initially on refining the digital journey and content hierarchy.

Strategy Highlights

We structured the project into two phases:

1. Phase One: Focused on content hierarchy, user flows, and functional journey.

2. Phase Two: Led by myself and the Art Director, this phase would define the full design system and deliver the final UI redesign.

This phased approach allowed us to launch a functional, user-centered experience on schedule while setting up a clear path for the visual and brand evolution in the next iteration.

Homepage: Before( 2024 and prior )	Phrase 1-Content focused UX revision (Launched in Spring 2024)	Final version-UI redesign (To be developed and launched in the future) View Live Demo	Version 2 View Live Demo

Iterating and Evolving the Product After Phase One Launch

Following the Phase One launch to kick off the campaign season, we continuously iterated on the product, addressing user pain points and evolving the brand to better serve our audience over time.

New Interactive Feature to Display Text Content

The initial redesign introduced a new site structure, with most conceptual content reorganized under a new landing page called “About Us.” However, the history and conceptual sections remained text-heavy, contributing to persistently high exit rates.

To address this, I reimagined the interactive modules:

• Modular Card Layout: Editorial areas are displayed in structured, scannable cards.

• Micro-Interactions: Cards feature hover expansions and highlighted states to guide focus and reinforce engagement.

• Progressive Disclosure: Users see high-level themes first, with the option to explore deeper content as desired.

• Visual Alignment: Bold typography, motion-driven emphasis, and elevated minimalism maintain a premium editorial feel.

I redesigned the feature into an actionable slideshow and interactive module, where each editorial pillar expands on hover or click, revealing deeper context while keeping a clean, card-based layout. The format mirrors familiar text editors for intuitive use, enhanced by a minimal frontend design implemented with custom HTML/CSS.

This solution helped users quickly grasp the organization’s content pillars while maintaining a refined, engaging digital experience.

In addition to the core redesign, I led a data visualization initiative with increased budget support, collaborating with an external vendor to integrate a JSX package into the Dynamic City Dashboard. This enhanced the interactivity and real-time presentation of complex data for users.

Simultaneously, I continued implementing the content strategy, iteratively releasing MVP pages including:

• About Us

• Cancer Coalition Page

• Dynamic Cities Coalition

This approach allowed us to continuously refine the product, maintain alignment with strategic priorities, and deliver high-value content experiences in parallel with the broader web redesign.

Evolving the visual identity-UI ReDesign

Once the core journey and content hierarchy were established, I moved into UI design, creating development-ready mockups. This included defining the app’s visual identity—typography, color system, and component library—ensuring alignment with brand guidelines while following UI best practices.

Special attention was given to the economic theme, designing interfaces that feel calm, supportive, and encouraging rather than overwhelming. The result was a cohesive, developer-ready UI that maintained a consistent brand presence and delivered a smooth, reassuring user experience.

Inspired by the Brand guidelines	My Visual Design mockup
	While the final UI design is under development, you can explore the live page in my Github project site.

With the core user experience solidified, the next step was to evolve the brand to better reflect the product’s personality. When I joined, new brand guidelines were being established, and we significantly developed them during the redesign. Drawing inspiration from legacy templates and competitor research, elements such as blue skies, natural motifs, and longitude-inspired illustrations informed the platform’s overall aesthetic. The color palette and UI components defined during this process laid the foundation for the design system I would later build.

Creating a Design System

To ensure consistency and support future product expansion, we developed a comprehensive design system. For successful implementation, collaboration across teams was essential. I worked closely with another product designer and coordinated with the product manager and developers to align efforts.

The design system became a single source of truth for brand assets and standardized UI components, enabling rapid product expansion while maintaining brand consistency across all touchpoints. By streamlining both design and development processes, it reduced time for new feature creation and ensured a cohesive user experience across the platform.

Conclusion

After delivering the design documentation to the development team, I concluded my work on the project. Throughout the engagement, I led the end-to-end redesign—from defining the user journey and content hierarchy to wireframing, prototyping, and evolving the brand and visual identity. I also established a scalable design system, laying the foundation for rapid product expansion while ensuring consistency across all touchpoints.

The outcome is a user-centered, cohesive, and visually engaging platform, ready for implementation, with clear guidance for the development team to continue iterating. This project demonstrates how strategic UX and UI design, coupled with a strong content and brand strategy, can transform complex digital experiences into intuitive, high-impact solutions.

Market Recognition

The redesigned platform has strengthened BNE’s position in the market, supporting its ability to generate significant revenue and attract top-tier delegates.

Marketing Learnings
Marketing efforts have been highly tactical and digital-focused, amplifying sponsor content and driving engagement through social media clips. Organic search and direct traffic remain the primary sources of website visits, reflecting strong brand awareness. Year-over-year growth in impressions and video views underscores the effectiveness of these strategies in expanding reach and audience engagement.