Rebuilding OTPP’s website for clarity, accessibility, and scale
Led UX, IA, accessibility, and system design for OTPP’s website rebuild, improving navigation, publishing efficiency, and long-term usability across a complex enterprise platform. 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 & System Design
Information Architecture
Accessibility & Governance
Enterprise Collaboration
Outcome
Redesigned OTPP’s digital experience around audience needs, clearer navigation, and scalable publishing systems, turning a complex corporate website into a more usable and maintainable platform.
Why It Mattered
The existing site reflected internal structures more than user needs. Content was harder to navigate, publishing was slower than it needed to be, and the experience did not fully support accessibility, clarity, or long-term scale.
Results
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30 to 40% faster publishing
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20% faster task completion
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WCAG 2.0 AA compliance
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Higher engagement and time on site
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Design system adopted beyond launch
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Improved clarity for members, investors, employees, and stakeholders
Figma Component Library / Design System for the OTPP Site Overhaul
What I Lead
As Manager, UX & Creative:
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Directed internal UX team in collaboration with Accenture’s UX group (4 designers)
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Managed integration with dev partner Digital On Six
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Coordinated with internal content and agency teams
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Ran weekly Sprint Reviews with executive stakeholders
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Delivered UX strategy, IA, research, and Figma-based design system
How We Did It
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Ran stakeholder interviews and user tests to map key journeys
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Defined 3 UX personas: Searchers, Seekers, and Skimmers
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Led IA revamp using card sorts and label testing
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Built responsive Figma components with accessibility baked in
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Personalized content by region (NA, EMIA, Asia-Pacific)
Overview
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is one of Canada’s largest institutional investors, managing a complex digital ecosystem for multiple audiences. Its website had grown over time into a large, content-heavy platform, but the experience was no longer as clear or as scalable as it needed to be.
I led UX and system design for the rebuild, helping reframe the work from a visual refresh into a broader platform redesign. The goal was to make the site easier to navigate, easier to manage, and better able to support accessibility and long-term growth.
The Challenge
The legacy site reflected OTPP’s internal structures more than the needs of the people using it. Navigation was difficult to parse, publishing workflows were slower than they should have been, and accessibility expectations were higher than what the current experience supported.
The challenge was to create a system that could:
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simplify navigation across key audiences
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support better content governance and publishing speed
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improve accessibility across the experience
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create a stronger foundation for long-term digital growth
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This was not just a website redesign. It was an enterprise UX problem with operational implications behind it.
My Role
As Manager, UX and Creative, I led OTPP’s internal UX and research team in partnership with Accenture and development collaborators. I guided discovery, research, information architecture, accessibility thinking, and cross-functional alignment across content, design, and technical teams.
A major part of my role was helping shift the conversation from launching a better-looking site to building a clearer and more scalable digital platform. That meant aligning stakeholders around audience needs, simplifying complexity where possible, and making sure the system would support both users and internal teams after launch.
Strategic insight
The key insight was that the core issue was not simply content volume. It was uncertainty.
Users were not just overwhelmed by the amount of information. They often lacked confidence that they were in the right place or taking the right next step. That changed the way we approached the work. Instead of only simplifying pages, we focused on creating clearer pathways, stronger labeling, and audience-centered entry points.
The behavioural model we developed, Searchers, Seekers, and Skimmers, gave the team a practical way to make decisions about architecture, navigation, and content hierarchy. It helped turn research into a framework the organization could actually use.
What I changed
1. Reframed the site around audience needs
We moved away from a structure that mirrored OTPP internally and toward a model that better supported members, investors, employees, and corporate stakeholders. That mattered because users no longer had to understand the organization before finding relevant information.
2. Improved information architecture and navigation
I led IA work through interviews, usability testing, card sorts, and content analysis. The goal was not to make the site smaller. It was to make it easier to move through with confidence and less friction.
3. Built a more scalable publishing system
We introduced reusable components, template improvements, and a more modular page structure. That mattered because publishing became faster and more consistent for internal teams.
4. Embedded accessibility into the system
Accessibility was treated as a design requirement from the start, not a later compliance step. The resulting experience achieved WCAG 2.0 AA compliance, which helped raise the baseline quality and inclusiveness of the platform.
5. Created a system that could extend beyond launch
The design system and content model were built to support more than the initial website rollout. Their use beyond launch showed that the work created durable value, not just a one-time redesign.
A Concrete Example
One clear example came from the Employment section. Research showed that prospective employees, especially co-op students, struggled to find opportunities quickly. We restructured the section, clarified the labeling, and made job search a more direct path.
That mattered because it showed how research translated into a better information architecture for a specific audience, not just a general improvement in site polish.
Results and Impact
The rebuild improved both the user experience and the internal operating model behind it:
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30 to 40% faster publishing through CMS and template improvements. This mattered because internal teams could update and manage content more efficiently.
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20% faster task completion across key journeys. This mattered because users could reach important information with less friction.
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WCAG 2.0 AA compliance across the experience. This mattered because accessibility became part of the platform standard, not an afterthought.
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Higher engagement and time on site through clearer, more useful UX. This mattered because the experience became easier to stay engaged with.
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Design system adoption beyond launch to support future growth. This mattered because the work created long-term operational value beyond the website itself.
The larger outcome was a digital platform that was easier to navigate, easier to manage, and better equipped to scale with the organization.
Leadership and influence
My leadership focus was not only on improving the final product, but also on improving the way teams worked together. I made alignment a priority across UX, content, development, and stakeholders, especially in areas where complexity had previously created silos.
That meant introducing shared frameworks, running collaborative reviews, and helping teams make decisions against a common user-centered vision. I also mentored our UX researcher in stakeholder communication and presentation delivery, helping build capability within the team as the work progressed.
Why This Project Matters
Tony combines strategic UX thinking with strong systems leadership. He helped turn a complex website problem into a clearer, more scalable platform by aligning teams around user needs and practical decision-making.
Joe Smith, Manager, OTPP
Learnings
This project reinforced that enterprise UX is not only about interface quality. It is about reducing uncertainty at scale across users, teams, tools, and time.
In large organizations, clarity is both a design outcome and a leadership responsibility. The best progress came from treating the website as a system of pathways, decisions, and governance, not just a collection of pages.
"UX at this scale means designing clarity across people, tools, and time."