Prudential Site Migration
Prudential + Deloitte June 2022 - May 2023How do you redesign over 800 pages, leverage a new design system, and move the entire web platform to a new content management system (CMS)?.
As the sole design system representative in this multi-team project, which also included Deloitte partners, I led the integration of the design system into this new platform.
View example page opens in a new window- UI development
- UX/UI QA
- Adobe Expierience Manager
- W3C Web Components
- Becca Lisoski
- Stephanie Marca
- Navanita Sharma
- Elisa Schur
Background
After the initial migration of the Prudential.com homepage to a new Evolution Design System, that still left over 800 pages that were in need of a redesign to align with the new design system.
At the same time the CMS these pages were built on was being deprecated. Deloitte was brought in as a partner to move the pages to a new Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) CMS.
Problem
800+ pages using an outdated CMS, dated and inconsistent designs, and not aligned with the new Evolution Design System.
Goal
Simultaneously move all pages to a new CMS, and use the Evolution Design System components to create a consistent experience across all of Prudential.com.
My Role
Process
Legacy Audit
Audit a portion of legacy pages to find common elements. Map those elements to existing design system components. See what gaps exist where elements can not be mapped.
My role: Assist the UX team, by finding existing componetns to use, and planning out work for any new components.
New Design System Components
Create new design system components to fill needs for elements found in audit.
My role: UI development of the new components with full ADA compliance. Coordination of additional development resourcing from my team with timelines required from Deloitte dev team.
Component Mapping
With existing and newly developed design system components, map a page's content to new components to be used when migrated.
My role: Review components mappings done by UX team. Provide suggestions for components to use. Call out when a mapping would not be achievable.
UI QA Review
Once pages had been migrated by Deloitte they require UI review to ensure they are authored and developed correctly.
My role: Review the pages and components built by Deloitte. With over 20 different authors, common mistakes occured frequently. I coordinated how to resolve these issues across the whole group.
Outcomes
- First site launch of a fortune 50 company in 6 years
- 800+ pages updated to use the new design system
- 13 new components created in the design system
- 21 components from the design system used in production for the first time
Learnings
Working with a 3rd party consultant requires constant communication and alignment. You have to be equals, you can’t act like they’re doing a service for you, and they can’t act like they are the subject matter experts over you.
With massive long term projects, allocating additional time for background reseach saves time in execution. Understanding all of the requirements, old tech and design pitfalls, past knowledge, and establishing a working relationship are critical before the project start. Cutting down on this in the beginning will just lead to miscommunications, pitfalls, and extended timelines in the end.
No migration of this scale is going to be perfect. It’s about knowing where you can put your effort to get the most value, and thoroughly documenting those places to improve post migration.
