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A rebrand of one of the world's most well-known brands and a corresponding overhaul of the entire website in only 3 months from kickoff to global launch.
After 2 years of explosive growth, Zoom had long outgrown its homely brand identity and was facing a mountain of tech & UX debt. A redesign of the visual identity and website would elevate the brand to look the part of its industry-leading position.
As the principal designer and manager of the Web UX team, I led a cross-departmental effort to redesign and rebuild the Zoom.us website, contributing a majority-stake to the visual identity, information architecture, and sitewide user experience.
When businesses shut down, education went remote, and families were separated during the Covid-19 Pandemic, a simple video conferencing software became a lifeline to the rest of the world for millions of people across the globe. Nearly overnight, Zoom became a household name and one of the top 5 most visited websites in the world.
Two years later, Zoom was faced with the challenge of their own success: to be known the world over as just a meetings platform despite offering nearly a dozen distinct products. In order to reposition themselves as a unified communications platform, the company initiated an ambitious brand refresh project to update the humble—if a little homely—Zoom brand to match it’s industry-leading stature.
The refresh was planned to include a new brand identity; a redesigned logo; restructured product architecture; updated messaging and tone; and a complete suite of redesigned marketing materials — the largest and most visible of which was the Zoom.us website, front door to the brand and product for over 3 million people per day.
Additionally, I also wanted to use this opportunity to address some of the massive amount of tech & UX debt that we had accumulated in the chaotic growth of 2020. Beyond just a visual update, we wanted to bring the Zoom website out of 2017 and into 2022 with updated IA, navigation, and UX + development best practices.
When businesses shut down, education went remote, and families were separated during the Covid-19 Pandemic, a simple video conferencing software became a lifeline to the rest of the world for millions of people across the globe. Nearly overnight, Zoom became a household name and one of the top 5 most visited websites in the world.
Two years later, Zoom was faced with the challenge of their own success: to be known the world over as just a meetings platform despite offering nearly a dozen distinct products. In order to reposition themselves as a unified communications platform, the company initiated an ambitious brand refresh project to update the humble—if a little homely—Zoom brand to match it’s industry-leading stature.
The refresh was planned to include a new brand identity; a redesigned logo; restructured product architecture; updated messaging and tone; and a complete suite of redesigned marketing materials — the largest and most visible of which was the Zoom.us website, front door to the brand and product for over 3 million people per day.
Additionally, I also wanted to use this opportunity to address some of the massive amount of tech & UX debt that we had accumulated in the chaotic growth of 2020. Beyond just a visual update, we wanted to bring the Zoom website out of 2017 and into 2022 with updated IA, navigation, and UX + development best practices.
Building a design system from scratch is no small task, so I started by defining a set of principles that my team and I could align to as we went. Our vision was to create a system that allowed the team to quickly handle repeatable tasks while leaving room for creative problem-solving.
Keep only what's necessary—each component must prove its value. A lean system is faster to design, easier to maintain, and ensures consistency from end to end.
Balance flexibility with repeatability, enabling designers to solve problems creatively, quickly, and confidently.
Design components that meet past, present, and future needs, supporting both legacy pages and new content.
Stay current with evolving methodologies and tools. A design system is never done—it's a living document and shouldn't gather dust.
The rebrand kicked off in June 2022 with only 3 short months before the scheduled launch. We received the building blocks of a new brand — fonts, colors, and photography — but no direction yet on how to assemble them into a cohesive visual identity; and because the website had the longest turnaround time of any asset, my team also had to find time in our already-tight timeline to simply redesign one of the most recognizable brands in the world.
We initiated a design ideation phase with members of the web team, brand team, and leaders within the marketing organization. After we defined a new style, I then set out to redesign the Zoom homepage as the foundational pillar of our new website and brand at large.
Once reviewed and approved by senior leadership, this homepage design then served as a reference for the brand design team to create a new brand style guide, the product marketing team to orient their new platform messaging around, and our own web team to reskin our design system for application across our entire website.
Along the way, we conducted several rounds of qualitative user testing to validate key design decisions and visual concepts. Using this new visual identity and updated design system, we also redesigned and rebuilt nearly 30 of the most highly trafficked pages on our site.
The rebrand kicked off in June 2022 with only 3 short months before the scheduled launch. We received the building blocks of a new brand — fonts, colors, and photography — but no direction yet on how to assemble them into a cohesive visual identity; and because the website had the longest turnaround time of any asset, my team also had to find time in our already-tight timeline to simply redesign one of the most recognizable brands in the world.
We initiated a design ideation phase with members of the web team, brand team, and leaders within the marketing organization. After we defined a new style, I then set out to redesign the Zoom homepage as the foundational pillar of our new website and brand at large.
Once reviewed and approved by senior leadership, this homepage design then served as a reference for the brand design team to create a new brand style guide, the product marketing team to orient their new platform messaging around, and our own web team to reskin our design system for application across our entire website.
Along the way, we conducted several rounds of qualitative user testing to validate key design decisions and visual concepts. Using this new visual identity and updated design system, we also redesigned and rebuilt nearly 30 of the most highly trafficked pages on our site.
In September, only 3 months after kickoff, the new Zoom brand identity was released to the world across the product, website, and all marketing channels. In addition to the new identity receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback from users and media alike, we delivered above and beyond on every project goal.
Immediately after launch, we applied a comprehensive quantitative research strategy to validate success in our KPIs and overall site health metrics. As hoped, the numbers were all green: the redesigned homepage produced a 26% lift in eCommerce conversion rate and a 19% lift in free account signups. The redesigned navigation produced a 300% lift to engagement with our products, 38% lift to our solutions, and 130% increase to our marketing resources. Additionally, our redesigned product pages all saw double-digit lifts in their respective primary conversion metrics.
In September, only 3 months after kickoff, the new Zoom brand identity was released to the world across the product, website, and all marketing channels. In addition to the new identity receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback from users and media alike, we delivered above and beyond on every project goal.
Immediately after launch, we applied a comprehensive quantitative research strategy to validate success in our KPIs and overall site health metrics. As hoped, the numbers were all green: the redesigned homepage produced a 26% lift in eCommerce conversion rate and a 19% lift in free account signups. The redesigned navigation produced a 300% lift to engagement with our products, 38% lift to our solutions, and 130% increase to our marketing resources. Additionally, our redesigned product pages all saw double-digit lifts in their respective primary conversion metrics.
The results were overwhelmingly positive, but of course a website is never "done". After verifying that we had succeeded in our initial targets, we looked for additional opportunities for improvement and adjusted our sights on optimization. Over the following months, we would lead a series of optimization A/B tests on the homepage hero, product section, navigation, and contact sales pages for additional incremental lift.
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