Unifying the enterprise web experience
Company
Role
Overview
IBM.com was fragmented across business units, each with its own design system and content strategy. The goal was to migrate from Drupal to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), integrating Red Hat architecture on IBM Cloud — a first-of-its-kind setup. This platform shift enabled IBM to centralize content creation, enforce design consistency, and empower teams to publish efficiently using reusable templates and components.
Challenge
Disparate design systems and a sprawling content ecosystem made IBM.com difficult to scale, maintain, and navigate. Internal teams struggled with inconsistent templates, redundant bespoke pages, and limited reuse of content. IBM needed a more cohesive, flexible, and scalable solution that aligned with the Carbon Design System and could serve the needs of a global enterprise.
Solution
A modular design system built on atomic principles and implemented in AEM allowed for scalable content authoring and design consistency across all IBM business units. Templates and components were designed to serve a range of marketing and product needs while maintaining visual and functional coherence. The migration enabled content reuse, faster publishing, and a significant reduction in bespoke pages.
Key features
Reusable Page Templates, Modular AEM Components, Integration with Carbon Design System, Cross-Sector Design Governance, Scalable Content Authoring
My Contributions
UX Design of marketing page templates and components, Atomic design implementation, Prototyping in Sketch and InVision, Cross-functional collaboration with devs, authors, and Carbon team, Design QA and developer handoff, Research-informed iteration based on user testing
Awarded the 2022 Adobe Experience Maker Award
Reduction in bespoke web pages
Increased speed and efficiency in AEM content authoring
Improved design consistency across IBM.com
Enabled scalable and reusable content structure across global teams
Kirby Evans