From inherited wireframes to strategic systems thinking: how I helped turn a brittle editorial platform into a scalable CMS adopted by 150+ journalists.
🧩 Problem
Business Insider’s legacy CMS was fragmented and brittle, slowing down editorial productivity and stifling innovation. There was little UX consideration, and engineers were blocked by clunky APIs. Editors struggled with confusing workflows, error-prone metadata, and tool sprawl.
💡 Solution
I led UX strategy, design system foundations, and key feature redesigns that transformed the CMS into a flexible publishing platform, eventually powering BI’s most revenue-driving formats.
📈 Outcome
Scaled adoption from 6 beta users to 150+ active journalists. Within 3 years, 93% of editorial traffic ran through the CMS.
As of June 30, 2025—8 months after my departure— the team launched the final feature (Homepage Editor) and fully deprecated the legacy CMS, now powering 100% of site traffic.
Timeline
3 years, Aug 2021 — Oct 2024
Post-departure milestone: June 30, 2025
Team
6 PMs, 18 engineers
The legacy system was rigid and backend-heavy, with minimal UX investment. Editorial workflows were inconsistent, error-prone, and often blocked by technical bottlenecks.
When I joined, a redesign was already underway. The new CMS was being built with a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") philosophy, intended to match the frontend exactly. But as adoption grew, we uncovered major limitations: brittle UI patterns, poor scalability across story types, and a misleading preview experience that didn't reflect real editorial needs.
With no roadmap and limited design influence, my early contributions were reactive and tightly scoped. That changed in early 2022, when a new Group PM came on board and I was promoted to Senior Product Designer. With more ownership, I reframed the CMS strategy around usability, not visual fidelity, shifting from WYSIWYG to WYSIWYN ("what you see is what you need").
Systemic UI overhaul
Replaced rigid carousel UIs with accessible accordion panels that streamlined editorial workflows.
Inherited carousel UI
Redesigned accordion UI
Metadata UX improvements
Partnered with SEO editors to design real-time validation patterns (like smart character counters), reducing publishing errors and building user confidence.
Product collaboration
Redefined workflows by transforming vague product tickets into detailed, user-centered specs, aligning engineering, product, and design.
Foundational design systems work
Built the CMS component library from scratch, supporting increasingly complex formats and laying the groundwork for a broader system adopted across teams.
From legacy chaos to intuitive tooling, this progression shows our push for clarity, usability, and scale.
We launched with just 2% adoption, but by analyzing usage patterns, focusing on high-impact formats, and continuously refining the experience, we steadily earned trust and scaled adoption.
🚀 100% of editorial traffic now powered by the CMS (as of June 30, 2025)
👥 150+ active users, up from 6
🧹 Legacy backend fully deprecated, reducing technical debt
Slideshow builder
A modernized image-heavy format with bulk image uploads and fullscreen image management, designed to build trust by emulating legacy behaviors.
Liveblogs and custom pages
Supported real-time news coverage, sponsored content, and other specialized formats.
AI metadata assistant
Accelerated publishing with smart autofill and suggestions—called out by execs for boosting efficiency.
Automate more workflow steps to reduce friction