Optimizely: From Fragmentation to the Marketing OS
Drag to compare between the new and old visual identity
Optimizely, known as being the leading experimentation platform, had a bold ambition: to become the #1 CMS & DXP provider, overtaking Sitecore and Adobe.
Low Design Maturity & Fragmented Org
Design was often treated as a delivery service rather than a strategic partner. Designers reported into engineering, and there were no shared processes for research, design reviews, or usability testing, and no framework for levelling or career growth.
Aquisitions & No Cohesive UX
7 acquisitions (2019–2025) created a patchwork of products with different brands, UI patterns, and even conflicting terminology and features (“segments” vs “audience” vs “visitor groups”).
Rapid & Lofty Targets
The business wanted rapid growth and integration of acquired products, without slowing delivery or losing sight of ambitious market goals.
Approach
Build trust and diagnose the problem
1:1s with all designers
I met each designer individually to build personal rapport and hear their frustrations. These conversations surfaced stress points that weren’t being voiced publicly and gave me a chance to share my vision, helping the team see that I was invested in their growth.
Whiteboard workshop
I brought the whole design team together for an open whiteboard session. By mapping out challenges as a group, we not only validated individual concerns but also created a shared understanding of the problems we faced. This collective exercise built alignment and buy-in from the start.
Leadership interviews
I also sat down with product and engineering leaders to hear their perspective on design: what value they saw, where collaboration worked, and where it fell short. This gave me a clear picture of design’s reputation in the org and the gaps we’d need to close to gain influence.
Position design as a strategic partner
I presented my findings to product and engineering leadership, pairing them with clear, research-backed recommendations.
The core proposal: shift design from a decentralised setup under engineering managers to a matrix structure embedded within Product.
I grounded my recommendations in respected sources, including Eric Schaffer’s Institutionalization of UX and Nielsen Norman Group’s Where Should UX Report?
We also rebranded ‘UX Designers’ as ‘Product Designers’ to better reflect their role in the product development process and align with industry positioning.
Equip and empower the team
Designers weren’t running usability tests, which meant we were relying too much on assumptions. I trained the team and gave them simple playbooks so they could run quick, lightweight tests themselves. They started small, testing with each other, then with colleagues outside their product teams. It built confidence fast, and soon usability testing became part of the everyday design process rather than a special event.
Before, designers rarely shared their work with each other. That meant ideas were being repeated, product knowledge stayed siloed, and there was little practice in presenting or giving constructive critique. I introduced structured design reviews with clear roles and guidelines. This created a forum to share early thinking, avoid duplication, and strengthen feedback skills, whilst also spreading product knowledge across the team.
Because of acquisitions and inconsistent titles, designers didn’t know what was expected of them or how to grow. Introducing a levelling framework helped set role expectations, aligned titles, and gave transparency on progression. It gave designers a path forward, reduced frustration, and also became the foundation for fair salary banding with external benchmarks.
Align on the business vision
We ran workshops internally, and contextual inquiries with our ideal customer profiles (ICPs), to understand their workflows and tools, with the long-term ambition of positioning Optimizely as “The Marketing Operating System.”
From this research, we developed the ROAD framework to guide strategy:
- Reporting – Track experiments, sales performance, and content impact.
- Organising – Manage content, assets, and workflows across CMS, DAM, PIM, and other storage systems.
- Authoring – Support users in creating engaging, high-quality content.
- Designing – Enable personalisation, experimentation, and responsive design across channels.
ROAD became a north star, informing both our research roadmap and key build-versus-buy decisions.
Create one cohesive product experience
UI Refresh (short-term)
With seven acquired products all looking and feeling different, we ran a two-week sprint to quickly align on basics. Designers produced reference screens, and dev teams applied a consistent set of fonts and colours across products. It was a pragmatic first step to reduce visual fragmentation without slowing delivery.
Navigation alignment
Each product had its own information architecture and navigation pattern, which made the fragmentation even more noticeable. We mapped all existing structures, then defined a unified vertical navigation system designed to scale with the portfolio. The result was improved usability.
“One Optimizely” visual identity (long-term)
The quick refresh wasn’t enough. We designed a new visual identity to unify the suite under a single brand that customers could recognise and trust. Its success was validated through desirability testing, ensuring the design felt both modern, premium and professional.
Documentation for teams to carry out the UI Refresh
Many inconsistencies were found across products, with the above 3 giving just a few examples.
Optimizely's new visual identity
Outcomes
Optimizely became *the* leader for DXPs
When I joined in January 2020 Optimizely was just about within the leader quadrant at the bottom left. In 2025, Optimizely was ranked highest for ability to execute and completeness of vision, making them the number one provider.
Became the joint leader for CMS
Optimizely’s CMS offering was recognised as strong, but our weaker strategy rating kept us from the top spot in the Forrester Wave. By 2025, closer collaboration between Product, Design, and Engineering helped us sharpen both our vision and execution. As a result, Optimizely rose to joint leader in the CMS category, validating years of work to unify our products and strategy.
From scattered efforts to a real design organisation
Designers went from feeling like “wireframe monkeys” to being recognised as strategic partners.
Clear levelling, career paths, and salary bands gave the team stability and a sense of growth.
Better collaboration, better design
Design reviews, usability testing, and shared guidelines meant ideas didn’t live in silos anymore.
Designers felt empowered to test and push their own work, not just wait for orders.
One company, one look
Seven acquired products started to feel like part of the same family.
A short-term UI refresh bought breathing room, while a new shared visual identity created a premium, modern, cohesive “One Optimizely.”
Strategic alignment
Moving design into Product gave it a seat at the table, and a direct role in shaping the marketing operating system vision.
Roadmap decisions became anchored not just in tech and business needs, but in user insight.
Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms. Left 2020, right 2025.
The Forrester Wave™ Content Management Systems, Left 2021, right 2025.
