Caitlyn M. Smith
Marvel.com Re-Design and Content Management Systems (CMS)
Given something akin to the world's largest IKEA box, with no instructions, no idea how many pieces were in the box or what those pieces could do, our team was tasked with redesigning and repopulating every single page page on Marvel.com AND keeping all the comics and MCU fans happy with the outcome.
The outcome was a Webby Award winning site that still thrives.
With the new redesign, we built a brand new proprietary CMS from scratch. As we brought Marvel.com into the MCU era, we needed to design the site and the UX in such a way that it appealed to both comic and cinematic fans, allowing them to find everything out about their favorite character and more. For the first time, our pages could show both sides of the characters story -- their on screen version and their on page version. And maybe even their animated or in game version if they had one. All in one dynamic hub for the user.
The problem was that we had no idea what exactly our CMS could do, how each field could function, the parameters or the full scope of what was needed or what full approvals would be needed by creators -- after all, this had never been done before. But with a team of two designers and two content specialists that I oversaw, we set work with a rough ux design...that quickly failed with trial and error...and then a new one...and then more failure...and on and on went the trial and error.
But the final result is more than worth it. Users can get more out of Marvel.com than ever before, navigating seamlessly between characters in their favorite Super Hero groups or films, listening to the sound tracks from their favorite film right in the page, being directed to a curated reading list for their favorite character in Marvel Unlimited or to a new show on Disney+, all right from Marvel.com
