Leading UX and system design for OTPP’s full website rebuild

Led a full UX and system redesign for OTPP, creating an accessible, audience-driven platform that cut publishing time by 40% and unified brand, content, and product experience. View live site ↗

2022

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan

OTPP is one of Canada’s largest pension funds, managing over $247B in assets with a global investment footprint.

UX & Product Design
System Design

Information Architecture

Accessibility

Leadership

Outcome

Rebuilt OTPP’s corporate website into a scalable, audience-centered ecosystem, improving publishing efficiency by up to 40%, modernizing accessibility, and aligning UX with the organization’s evolving brand and digital strategy.

Why It Mattered

OTPP’s legacy site reflected internal silos rather than user needs. Publishing was slow, navigation was confusing, and accessibility fell short. The rebuild unified structure, tools, and teams to create a seamless, user-first experience that also improved operational efficiency.

Results

30–40% faster publishing through CMS upgrades and reusable templates
20% faster task completion across key user journeys
Higher engagement and time-on-site driven by brand-aligned UX
WCAG 2.0 AA compliance achieved across layouts
Design system adoption beyond launch to support long-term growth

UX Components for Design System for the OTPP Site rebrand

Figma Component Library / Design System for the OTPP Site Overhaul

What I Lead

As Manager, UX & Creative:

Directed internal UX team in collaboration with Accenture’s UX group (4 designers)
Managed integration with dev partner Digital On Six
Coordinated with internal content and agency teams
Ran weekly Sprint Reviews with executive stakeholders
Delivered UX strategy, IA, research, and Figma-based design system

How We Did It

Ran stakeholder interviews and user tests to map key journeys
Defined 3 UX personas: Searchers, Seekers, and Skimmers
Led IA revamp using card sorts and label testing
Built responsive Figma components with accessibility baked in
Personalized content by region (NA, EMIA, Asia-Pacific)

Overview

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) manages over $247B in assets with a global investment footprint. Its corporate website had grown fragmented and outdated, creating friction for users and inefficiencies for internal teams.

This project was not just a redesign. It was part of a broader digital transformation to evolve OTPP’s ecosystem from a static, division-based structure into a unified, audience-centered experience for Members, Investors, Employees, and Corporate Stakeholders. The goal was to create a platform that reflected OTPP’s scale, strengthened trust, and positioned the organization for future digital growth.

Challenge

The legacy site made it difficult for users to find relevant content and for internal teams to maintain it efficiently. Navigation reflected internal silos, publishing was slow, and accessibility fell short of modern standards.

We needed to design a system that could:

Streamline navigation and publishing for four core audiences
Personalize content by region and user type
Align the digital experience with brand and accessibility standards
Enable long-term governance and content growth

This meant rebuilding not just the interface, but the way OTPP’s teams worked together across UX, content, and development.

Mobile first design for the OTPP website

My Role

As Manager, UX and Creative, I led OTPP’s internal UX and research team in partnership with Accenture’s consulting group.

I guided discovery and research, hosted workshops and sprint reviews, and worked directly with product owners, content strategists, developers, and brand stakeholders to define the structure, experience strategy, and design system.

Early on, I worked with executives to reframe the project’s success criteria, shifting the goal from launching a website to building an ecosystem designed around real audience needs and long-term scalability.

My focus was on alignment: connecting people, goals, and processes to create a cohesive product that served both business and user needs.

Strategy and Approach

Through interviews and usability research, we mapped the motivations and friction points of each audience. We uncovered a core insight: complexity was not the issue, uncertainty was. Users needed confidence as much as clarity. This finding informed three behavioral patterns: Searchers, Seekers, and Skimmers.

These groups became the foundation for our UX principles:

Design for clarity. Simplify navigation while preserving depth.
Empower each audience. Build paths that solve distinct goals but support overlap across audiences.
Build for scale. Create a modular system for growth and governance.

A clear example of this strategy came from the Employment section. Research showed that prospective employees, especially co-op students, could not easily find job opportunities. We reframed the structure and renamed the section to Employment. The new approach prioritized job search as the primary flow and introduced clear paths for both early talent and experienced professionals.

Every decision followed the same principle: design clarity across people, tools, and time.

Results and Impact

The rebuild achieved measurable improvements in both user experience and internal efficiency:

30–40% faster publishing time through CMS and template upgrades
20% faster task completion across key user journeys
Higher engagement and time on site through brand-aligned UX
WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility achieved across layouts
Design system adopted beyond launch to support long-term content growth

These results not only improved UX and operational efficiency but also established a repeatable model for future digital initiatives at OTPP. The project aligned teams around a shared UX and content framework that continues to guide OTPP’s digital ecosystem.

Leadership and Influence

My leadership focus was twofold: delivering a system that empowered users, and building a process that empowered people.

I made it a priority to create alignment across disciplines that had historically worked in silos. By introducing shared frameworks and collaborative design reviews, we reduced friction between UX, content, and development teams and built momentum around a common vision.

I also mentored our UX researcher, coaching her on stakeholder communication and presentation delivery. By the end of the project, she was leading executive reviews confidently. It was a personal highlight that reflected the culture of trust and growth we built within the team.

The design system and content model we defined were later extended to other internal platforms, including OTPP’s On Ten news site, ensuring consistency and efficiency across the organization’s digital landscape.

Tony is a type of person who has the ability to deliver successfully in crunch with well conceived and well crafted work… His willingness to guide and answer questions thoughtfully made working with him a productive as well as an enjoyable experience.

Joe Smith, Manager, OTPP

Get in touch

Learnings

Large-scale UX work is a marathon. It requires trust, tempo, and clear prioritization. With multiple teams and evolving infrastructure, I learned to lead through both systems thinking and day-to-day momentum. Enterprise UX isn’t just about clean interfaces, it’s about building confidence through structure.

"UX at this scale means designing clarity across people, tools, and time."