Brightside

Category: updates

  • Australian Red Cross

    Australian Red Cross

    Project Overview

    In a world where digital engagement drives change, the Australian Red Cross needed a refreshed digital identity — one that not only communicates its mission but also resonates emotionally with diverse audiences.

    With a commitment to empathy, trust, and action, the Red Cross embarked on a comprehensive digital brand refresh and website transformation, an 18-month project now progressing towards an August launch.

    As Lead Product Designer at Deepend, I led this transformative journey, crafting a digital brand experience that brings the Red Cross’s values to life.

    My work spanned creative design, digital brand strategy, and website transformation, ensuring the new identity is modern, flexible, and deeply empathetic.

    Outcomes & Impact

    01

    Enhanced User Experience

    Improved accessibility and clarity for users in crisis, donors, and volunteers.

    02

    Streamlined Content Management

    Streamlined content management with an extensive updated component suite.

    03

    Improved User Engagement

    Interactive elements and dynamic storytelling components foster deeper connections.

    04

    Scalability & Future-Proofing

    A modular design system supports ongoing growth and adapts to emerging needs.

    05

    Stronger Brand Consistency

    A unified digital brand reinforces trust and recognition across all touchpoints.

    06

    Expert guidance for client teams

    Design System site empowers internal teams to create high-quality, consistent content.

    The Three Drivers for our Design

    1. Authenticity
The new brand is centred around photojournalistic principles, emphasising honesty, empathy, and authenticity.
    2. Credibility
Seamless user experiences with repeatable design patterns throughout create an intuitive, easy-to-use website that inspires trust.
    3. Respect and Neutrality 
People come to the Red Cross in a huge variety of sometimes stressful situations, such as during or after natural disasters. 
It was of utmost importance to the whole team to ensure that the brand maintains a neutral and respectful attitude towards everyone’s needs.

    Data-Driven Design for organisational and user needs

    • Conducted extensive user research, including stakeholder interviews, usability testing, and data analysis.
    • Leveraged analytics to refine design decisions, optimising conversion rates for donations and engagement.
    • Implemented A/B testing to enhance UX elements, ensuring an intuitive and frictionless experience.
    Australian Red Cross component designs by Elisabeth Brassé

    Creating a modern, vibrant digital design system

    • Establishing UX guardrails to ensure components meet user needs
    • Developing a new UI toolkit
    • Designing 36 new and updated UI components for the Optimizely CMS
    • Creating the GEL / Online Design System

    Collaborating to uplift and expand CMS-ready components

    • Partnering closely with the external development team to ensure a seamless build and to maintain quality control.
    • Introducing a ‘component spec sheet’ to streamline communication between design and development teams.
    • Collaborating with the internal Red Cross team on QA, continuous improvement, and A/B testing.

    Delivering best practice guidance

    A key aspect of this project was delivering best-practice guidance for all Red Cross staff and volunteers, leading to a significant uplift in UX across the site.

    I designed 76 optimised pages as best-practice examples for internal teams to implement.

    I also created a UI Design System available as a Figma library and a dedicated internal GEL site with best practice guides and how-tos so that all team members can deliver great user experience.

    “This is fantastic work! Including not only component and template designs, but also guiding the team in best practice uses of these designs really adds so much value. Oh, and – our team’s recent donations campaign has been super successful! We can’t thank you enough.”

    – Christine Kurpitz, Head of Digital, Australian Red Cross

  • OzHarvest

    OzHarvest

    A Major Update

    OzHarvest had not updated their website in 15 years, so this major update was a major challenge in many ways.

    Originally engaged as a freelancer for Paper Moose to spend 3 weeks on IA, I ended up seeing the project through to the end of the design stage, about 9 months later. The Mooses have written a lovely case study on the project.

    Content Sorting and new IA

    Our first priority was a new structure and hierarchy for the organisation’s many arms, making sense of what they do.

    Conducting several workshops around content, user journeys and personas, I collaborated with client teams to restructure and slim down 7 WordPress websites with 132 pages into 2 sites with 34 pages.

    Wireframing

    Next, we mapped out how OzHarvest can most easily explain what they do in future. I had opportunity to inject my knowledge about experience design for the NGO sector, and to collaborate on the content design with the client’s comms team.

    I provided content design and detailed wireframes for all site pages.

    UI Design

    Paper Moose’s Divya Abe was the UI Design Lead on the project, while I passed on the client context and knowledge I had gained during the UX phase, helping find two on-brand design concepts. We then collaborated in creating final page designs across all breakpoints.

  • CLV Homes for Students

    CLV Homes for Students

    Campus Living Villages (CLV) are global student accommodation specialists creating tailored student communities that suit the unique culture of each campus, University or city they work with. So, they came to us with a brief to develop a refreshed brand that allows them to reflect their incredible diversity while creating a unified experience.

    Immersion

    We interviewed 44 students across 4 continents, benchmarked best practice in experience in the category, and involved stakeholders, students and subject matter experts in co-design workshops.

    Synthesis & Strategic UX

    Following the research phase, I created personas and user journeys for a variety of user groups, experience guardrails, and more.

    Transforming CX with new Business Logic

    I undertook an extensive UX audit of the room booking processes in each region.

    In a collaborative process with the client, I updated the business logic for displaying and booking rooms, delivering on a best-in-class integrated user experience.

    Complete Set of Wires

    This project required us to deliver all content and full UX wires for every page.
    I first created a new IA, then moved on to on page content hierarchy and wireframes for copywriters and art directors, as well as instructions for image creators.

    UI Design

    Jackie-Lee Hughes from Deepend – who took the lead on the UI design – and myself rolled out the UI for all pages.

    Due to the nature of the project, this was quite extensive, with home pages for 3 global regions and hierarchy pages for cities, universities, villages and rooms throughout.

    View the site at campuslivingvillages.com