APSC Brand Hub Redesign
Making brand guidelines easier to find and harder to skip.
Role
UX Designer
Timeline
March - June 2025 (2 UX Designers)
Skills
Information Architecture
User Research
Usability Testing
Content Strategy
Stakeholder Management
This is a long case study. Here are some shortcuts: See Product Thinking | See User Testing | See Solution
KEY IMPACT
30%
Fewer support requests to the Admins/Comms team.
40%
Faster template find time in task-based interviews.
25%
Fewer internal pages/files through consolidation.
OVERVIEW
Users weren’t ignoring the brand guidelines and assets; they just couldn’t find them fast enough.
APSC (UBC Applied Science Faculty) supports many departments and units under the program. Communicators across the faculty use the APSC brand hub to apply guidelines consistently and download templates.
My role as a UX Designer was to improve navigation patterns so communicators could find the right content faster, while still encouraging guideline comprehension.
PROBLEM
The brand sites had everything… except a clear path through it.
From the Comms team (site owners/admins) and early feedback, we saw a few consistent issues:
Hard to locate the guidelines for each asset
Users weren’t sure where to start.
Too much scrolling
Users couldn't reach frequently used information.
Users don't spend time understanding the guidelines
Communicators downloaded assets without reading the rules.
This wasn’t just a convenience problem. If users can’t consistently find or understand guidelines, then brand consistency breaks, and the Comms team becomes a help desk for “where is X?” and "How to Y?"
CONTEXT
One user journey, split across two platforms.
Most communicators didn’t think in terms of “public site vs intranet." They thought in terms of:
I need the correct file quickly without accidentally using the wrong template.
USERS & STAKEHOLDERS
Three groups, three definitions of “organized.”
Primary Users
Communicators across APSC (staff creating web pages, posters, announcements, presentations)
Key Stakeholders
Comms administrators (site owners)
want fewer repetitive questions, clearer compliance, and a structure that’s easy to maintain.
Digital team (my team)
needs scalable and implementable structure that will scale with growth.
Communicators (end users)
want to find what they need fast and know it’s the right thing.
A recurring tension: Admins wanted to include everything, but users just wanted the few things they actually needed.
CONSTRAINTS
I couldn’t delete the mess. I had to design a structure that scales with growth.
Two platforms with overlapping content and different access rules.
Resources kept accumulating over time!
Scope boundary: Long-term content improvements were adjacent, but not fully in my control.
DISCOVERY
First, I mapped where users got stuck.
Before proposing new navigation, I created a quick “what exists + where it lives” diagram.
WHAT I DID
Audited existing pages and resources (content inventory)
Listed top high-intent tasks (download unit templates, check logo rules, find writing/writing style, confirm colours/typography)
Flagged major friction points based on user interviews
IA STRATEGY
I treated this like a findability + scannability problem.
Clarified what belongs at Level 1 vs Level 2 so the most-used content is easy to reach.
Regrouped and relabeled pages to make categories feel more intuitive.
Added mini landing pages for each main category so users can choose quickly instead of scrolling through everything.
Made long pages scannable with quick links, clear headings, and consistent section patterns.
IA ITERATIONS | PUBLIC BRAND SITE
I regrouped the site until the labels stopped making users hesitate.
I created multiple IA options and iterated with stakeholder feedback + quick validation. Some key changes below:
Check out some other key iterations below:
VALIDATION
Early validation leaned admin-heavy; we expanded end-user input during the intranet phase.
I ran task-based tests with Comms admins to check findability + label fit. 4/4 tasks were completed successfully.
IA TREE TESTING
Method
I ran tree tests to validate whether people could find key content using labels and hierarchy alone (no UI, using post-its), so I could isolate and improve the information architecture.
Prompts
I wrote task prompts (find the most up-to-date template, locate photography guidelines, download SALA logo, find onboarding resources) using high-traffic, high-priority content from the hub with previous analytics of page visitor counts last year.
What I measured
I looked at task success rate, directness (straight path vs. detours), time/steps, and common wrong turns to identify weak labels and confusing groupings.
PHASE 2 | INTRANET IA
Fixing the front door revealed the chaos in the back room.
Once the public site felt easier to navigate, the next bottleneck became obvious: the intranet was where users actually came to “get things done,” and it felt like a document dump.
I ran 4 task-based interviews with end-user communicators from different units (CHBE, SALA, SCARP, APSC Dean's Office). Here are some key pain points:
Poor content structure
Users relied heavily on Ctrl+F, which is a signal that structure + scanning aren’t doing enough work.
Messy content presentation & navigation
Documents accumulated and were rarely cleaned up.
Conflicting Goal #1
Admins preferred to showcase everything, making it difficult for end users to navigate.
Conflicting Goal #2
Communicators wanted quick access to only what applied to them (only their unit!)
Version 0
Page Structure
I can’t share the actual page since it’s internal material, but here’s an anonymized version for illustration.
KEY INSIGHT
The moment I realized “APSC” didn’t mean what we thought.
In testing, a pattern came up that changed our direction:
Some communicators didn’t strongly identify themselves as a part of “APSC.” They interpreted “APSC” as faculty-wide, and assumed anything under that label might not apply to their specific unit.
So even if the label was technically correct, it wasn’t psychologically clear.
DESIGN DIRECTION
I cleaned up the IA around two real journeys: admins maintaining, communicators retrieving what they need.
With the key insight in mind, I focused the intranet redesign around two primary journeys:
Communicators: arrive in “deadline mode” to grab the right template fast, usually for one unit
Admins: need a centralized system that’s easy to maintain, expand, and keep consistent over time
This guided two decisions: simplify top-level navigation, and restructure content so users don’t face everything at once.
ACTIONS
Reduced top-level navigation from 12 → 6
Split up “Digital & Web” into clearer subgroups
Removed & merged one-page categories
Standardized naming to cut duplicates + improve scanning
Restructured content around Popular items and Browse by unit.(Not showing everything at once.)
For page content: Built mini landing pages with card-based navigation so users can choose a path quickly.
KEY CHANGES
After user testing, I iterated on the path and structure until the categories matched how both user groups search.
A lot changed across iterations, so I’ve pulled out the key moments below. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to see more details!
PAGE STRUCTURE
Content Organization Blueprint
Version 5 (FINAL)
View a detailed legacy Intranet IA
SOLUTION
From endless information to clear choices: a structure built for scanning.
I designed the Brand Hub around two core jobs-to-be-done: understand the guidelines (public) and retrieve the right asset quickly (intranet). By separating these needs and tightening the structure for scanning, the hub supports both brand adoption and efficient internal workflows.
PUBLIC SITE
View live solution here: brand.apsc.ubc.ca
For the public Brand Hub pages, I structured content around common scanning patterns (F-pattern reading), so the most important context and actions show up early, with details available further down for deeper reading.
INTRANET SITE
The intranet is internal, so I can’t share screenshots, but here’s a quick recap of what I shipped and the impact.
Re-structured
the intranet navigation so users can find assets by task.
Clarified
labels and page groupings based on end-user validation.
Created
a “Most used” entry point to surface the highest-demand files without browsing the full library.
Shipped
a content blueprint that can scale as new intranet pages get added.
REFLECTION
The takeaway I’m bringing forward…
Designing with success metrics
I’ve used metrics before, but this project pushed me to use them more consistently; linking my decisions to outcomes like fewer support requests, faster time-to-find, and fewer duplicate files. Previously, I sometimes treated “good UI” as mostly qualitative; if users seemed happier, I assumed the design succeeded. This project reinforced how grounding my decisions in measurable outcomes makes my work more focused, easier to communicate, and easier to iterate with confidence.
Validating IA early (and expanding beyond admin mental models)
I learned that early feedback can easily skew toward the people closest to the system (admins and maintainers) who often use different language than end users. Tree testing helped me validate the structure without UI, and expanding end-user input during the intranet phase surfaced label confusion and “wrong turns” I wouldn’t have caught otherwise.
Shipping something that scales (not a one-time cleanup)
Beyond reorganizing what already existed, I shipped a content blueprint so future pages can be added without the hub turning back into clutter.