THE CLIENT

SCOP (Stowarzyszenie Chirurgów Okulistów Polskich) is a professional association bringing together leading ophthalmologists, researchers, and medical specialists.

The organization serves multiple audiences: its existing members, prospective members, and external business partners seeking access to its network and expertise.

THE CHALLENGE

The existing website had become outdated and no longer reflected the positioning or quality of the organization.

The primary issues extended beyond visual design:

• The experience was not fully responsive.
• Information was densely presented and difficult to navigate.
• The existing information architecture did not adequately support different user needs.
• The website did not meet WCAG 2.1 accessibility expectations.
• The existing CMS and editorial workflow were outdated.
• The visual identity was inconsistent with the organization's positioning.
• Key content around events, news, membership, and partnerships was difficult to discover.

The product challenge was therefore to modernize the experience while preserving the organization's existing content and operational requirements.

PRODUCT OBJECTIVES

PHASE 1: DISCOVERY & REQUIREMENTS

Understand the organization's goals, audience needs, existing content ecosystem, technical requirements, and brand positioning.

PHASE 2: PRODUCT DESIGN & VALIDATION

Redesign the information architecture and user experience, prototype key journeys, and iterate based on stakeholder and usability feedback.

PHASE 3: IMPLEMENTATION

Translate the validated product design into a functional website and integrate it with the client's existing technical environment.

PHASE 4: LAUNCH & ENABLEMENT

Deploy the new experience and enable SCOP staff to independently manage and maintain the platform.

Project duration: March 2023 to December 2023

MY ROLE

Product Bulider / UX Lead / Webflow Developer

I owned the project across discovery, product definition, UX, design, implementation, and launch.

My responsibilities included:

• Stakeholder management
• Requirements gathering
• Product and UX strategy
• Information architecture
• User research
• Competitive analysis
• Wireframing and prototyping
• Usability and accessibility
• Responsive design
• Design system development
• Website development
• CMS implementation
• Quality assurance
• Client training and handover

This required balancing three dimensions of the product simultaneously: organizational needs, user experience, and technical feasibility.

DISCOVERY & RESEARCH

The project began with a focused discovery phase designed to establish a shared understanding of the current product and the desired future state.

STAKEHOLDER DISCOVERY

I worked with the organization's designated brand representative to understand:

• Organizational goals
• Member expectations
• Content priorities
• Brand positioning
• Existing frustrations
• Technical constraints
• Future growth requirements
• Expectations for the new website

Because direct access to members was limited, stakeholder interviews were supplemented with a detailed audit of the existing product and its content.

PRODUCT AUDIT

I conducted an extensive review of the existing website, analyzing:

• Information architecture
• Content hierarchy
• Navigation
• Interaction patterns
• Mobile behavior
• Accessibility
• CMS capabilities
• Visual identity
• Content discoverability

This allowed me to distinguish between problems requiring a visual redesign and problems requiring deeper structural changes.

USER SEGMENTATION

Based on the research and stakeholder input, I defined three primary user groups:

MEMBERS

Existing SCOP members looking for news, events, resources, and organizational information.

PROSPECTIVE MEMBERS

Doctors and specialists evaluating SCOP and looking for information about membership, requirements, and the application process.

BUSINESS PARTNERS

Organizations and businesses looking to connect with SCOP's network of specialists and explore partnership opportunities.

This segmentation helped shift the product from an organization-centric content structure toward one organized around user intent.

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

Several high-impact problems emerged from the discovery process.

01. THE PRODUCT DID NOT REFLECT THE BRAND

The visual language of the website did not communicate the expertise, credibility, and exclusivity associated with SCOP.

Opportunity: Create a digital experience that better reflects the organization's positioning.

02. INFORMATION WAS DIFFICULT TO CONSUME

Large volumes of content were presented with insufficient hierarchy, spacing, and prioritization.

Opportunity: Establish a clearer content hierarchy and reduce cognitive load.

03. MOBILE USERS WERE UNDERSERVED

The existing website was not sufficiently optimized for mobile devices.

Opportunity: Introduce a responsive system that provides a consistent experience across screen sizes.

04. THE PLATFORM WAS DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN

The existing CMS and editorial tools were outdated, creating friction for the organization internally.

Opportunity: Improve the content management experience alongside the public-facing product.

05. THE PRODUCT NEEDED TO SUPPORT FUTURE GROWTH

SCOP's membership and content ecosystem would continue to evolve.

Opportunity: Build an information architecture and content model capable of accommodating new specialists, events, resources, and organizational initiatives.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

I conducted a competitive audit across direct and indirect organizations, evaluating:

• Brand positioning
• First impressions
• Information architecture
• Interaction and functionality
• Visual design
• Content strategy
• Events and community features
• Responsiveness

KEY FINDINGS

Competitors generally demonstrated:

• Clearer brand positioning
• More responsive digital experiences
• Stronger content hierarchy
• More engaging event and community experiences
• Better communication of organizational value

These findings informed both the experience strategy and the opportunities for differentiation.

PROBLEM DEFINITION & PRIORITIZATION

I consolidated the research findings into a focused set of product problems and prioritized them based on user impact, organizational importance, and implementation feasibility.

KEY PAIN POINTS

1. The outdated design did not reflect the caliber of SCOP's professional community.
2. The experience was not sufficiently responsive.
3. Content density made information difficult to consume.
4. Navigation did not adequately support different user intents.
5. The overall journey lacked engagement and clear pathways.

PRODUCT PRIORITIES

1. Intuitive navigation
Make important content discoverable with minimal effort.

2. Clear and focused content hierarchy
Reduce cognitive load and make dense information easier to scan.

3. Stronger user journeys
Create clear pathways for members, prospective members, and partners.

4. Responsive product experience
Ensure the experience works effectively across desktop, tablet, and mobile.

5. Scalable content architecture
Create a structure that could evolve alongside the organization.

PERSONA-DRIVEN PRODUCT THINKING

I translated the research into representative user scenarios to validate the product direction.

Victor, SCOP Member
Needs quick access to news and upcoming events because the website is his primary source of organizational updates.

Dr. Emma, Prospective Member
Needs clear information about SCOP and the application process because she is evaluating whether to join the organization.

Emmanuel, Business Partner
Needs a clear path toward partnership opportunities because he wants to connect with specialists within the SCOP network.

These scenarios helped establish the key journeys the product needed to support.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

The new information architecture was designed around the questions users were trying to answer rather than the internal structure of the organization.

The goal was to make key destinations immediately understandable while creating a scalable structure for future content.

The resulting architecture provided clearer pathways for:

• News and updates
• Events
• Membership
• Organizational information
• Members and specialists
• Resources
• Partnerships
• Contact

PRODUCT DESIGN

Based on the research and information architecture, I developed low-fidelity wireframes before moving into high-fidelity prototypes.

The project used a desktop-first approach, reflecting the primary device behavior identified during discovery, while responsiveness was treated as a fundamental product requirement rather than an afterthought.

The wireframing phase allowed me to explore:

• Navigation models
• Content hierarchy
• Page structures
• Interaction patterns
• Responsive behavior
• Key conversion and information journeys

The validated concepts were then translated into high-fidelity designs.

DESIGN SYSTEM & CONSISTENCY

Because the platform contained a broad range of content types and page structures, consistency was essential.

I developed reusable UI patterns and components to establish consistency across:

• Typography
• Spacing
• Navigation
• Cards
• Content modules
• Forms
• Buttons
• Responsive behavior

This approach reduced design debt and created a more scalable foundation for future development.

ACCESSIBILITY

Accessibility was integrated into the product rather than treated as a final QA step.

The redesigned experience was developed with WCAG 2.1 principles in mind, including:

• Readability
• Contrast
• Content hierarchy
• Responsive behavior
• Scalable typography
• Accessible interaction patterns

The product was also tested at enlarged resolutions up to 200% to ensure that the experience remained usable for users requiring increased text size.

IMPLEMENTATION

Following design validation, I transitioned from product and UX work into implementation.

Using the prototypes and design system as the source of truth, I developed the website and implemented the required functionality and content structures in Squarespace.

The implementation required close attention to the relationship between:

Product requirements → Information architecture → Design system → CMS → Front-end experience

This ensured that the final product was not only visually aligned with the prototype, but also practical for the organization to maintain.

LAUNCH & ENABLEMENT

The final phase focused on deployment and operational enablement.

I prepared the product for launch and trained SCOP staff on managing and updating the website.

This was an important part of the product lifecycle. The goal was not simply to hand over a finished website, but to ensure that the organization could operate the product independently after launch.