      Case Study/Enterprise SaaSJourney Orchestrator
    

Reimagining customer journey orchestration

Transforming a complex enterprise automation platform into an intuitive orchestration experience that doubled customer adoption.

Program building was the heart of the product, and its biggest source of friction. I led the effort to rebuild it into an intuitive, AI-assisted workspace, owning research, stakeholder alignment, and design direction from discovery through launch.

My role

Design leadership across research, ideation and prototyping; managed UX teams and drove stakeholder alignment for user-centered practice.

Stakeholders aligned

SVP of Product
Head of Product Design
Product Managers
Engineering Manager
Director, Technical Comms

Focus areas

AI-native Drag & drop Versioning Testing Timezones Templates

58%

Faster setup

2×

Adoption growth

The reimagined builder, drag-and-drop authoring with branching logic, conditions and a full action palette.

01, The challenge

Program building is complex, and the tool made it harder

Building a program isn’t a single task. It combines logical structuring, technical detail, and cross-team collaboration. The existing builder was rigid, forcing users to adapt to the tool rather than the other way around.

Left unaddressed, that rigidity carried real organizational cost: programs failed silently, admins cloned and republished just to “test,” and teams stood up duplicate programs simply to handle different timezones.

The goal

A workspace built around how admins actually work

The Program Builder, rebuilt around how admins think about a program: drag-and-drop nodes, AI-assisted inline source creation, versioning, testing, timezone-aware scheduling, and reusable templates.

Drag-and-drop nodes AI inline sources Versioning Testing Dynamic timezone Reusable templates

02, Research & discovery

How the decisions were made

A mixed-method research program, secondary research, working sessions, community feedback and testing, used to fine-tune the final experience.

120min

Per working session

7+2

7 admins & 2 execs

Guided questions

Segments: Enterprise, SMB, Tech-touch

Five pain points that made building hard

Secondary research surfaced the structural reasons program building broke down for real teams.

01

Complex logic structures

Users struggled to translate abstract goals into executable workflows without errors.

02

Rigid workflows

The builder lacked flexibility, making even small changes tedious.

03

Collaboration gaps

Teams working across time zones faced constant friction in communication and alignment.

04

Error-prone environment

Without strong validation, versioning or testing, mistakes were common and costly.

05

Steep learning curve

Non-technical users found the existing builder intimidating and inaccessible.

→

Collaborative ideation

I ran working sessions with mid-market and enterprise admins to ground every decision in their reality.

Synthesizing working-session input into themes, templates, workflow suggestions, and broader feedback.

Product vision workshop

Turning workshop notes into a product direction

Before a single screen, we mapped the next generation of Journey Orchestrator on a whiteboard, a shared model of the program lifecycle and the capabilities it would need. That session set the direction for everything that shipped after.

Architecture workshop. An early collaborative session mapping the program lifecycle, draft/live versioning, participant continuity, publishing behaviour and future platform capabilities, before any solution was formalized.

The design process

Ideas on that board each became a real capability, proof the work started at the platform model, not the interface.

Version control

→

Program Versioning

Test a program

→

Program Testing

Drag & drop

→

Visual program builder

Dynamic connections

→

Flexible workflow authoring

Clone with config

→

Early exploration toward copy-based drafts

Execution logs

→

Simulation & debugging

One workshop set the direction for three shipped capabilities.

JO product vision

Whiteboard workshop

Platform

Journey Orchestrator

The visual, AI-native rebuild of the program builder.

Capability

Program Versioning

Safe, copy-based editing of live programs.

Capability

Program Testing

Dry-run simulation before publishing.

Prioritization

Turning admin voices into a vote-ranked roadmap

Rather than designing to opinion, I converted qualitative feedback into an evidence-backed priority model, each opportunity carried by admins’ own words and a clear vote count.

Working Sessions with Admins

Post Publish Edit

9 Votes

The ability to make edits to a program even after it's been published.

Modify Conditional Wait.

Add / Remove steps in a program.

Update an email template used in send email step.

Modify tokens used in a program, add calculated fields.

Admin Voice

“This will require more detail to avoid issues, such as ensuring visibility into which participants are affected and adding internal dependency checks. Overall, increased flexibility would be highly beneficial.”

“Currently we have to design all programs to fetch participants from the current program. This is the only way we can prevent rebuilding the query in the event a clone needs to happen.”

“Change the name of a program”

Test Run

9 Votes

Test run a program before publishing it

Test an individual step (test send email, check a condition etc).

Run program with test data without publishing it. Add test participants with data, run the program.

Admin Voice

“This would be HUGE!!!”

“This would be a great help. At the moment to test sometimes I publish with a test contact, and if all is working well, I clone it and publish again”

“This would be huge. It would significantly reduce my anxiety when launching a program for the first time”

Conditional Wait

7 Votes

Enhanced conditional wait to honor weekends, user timezone

Introduce OOB options to select non working days.

Customer messages can be configured to be sent only on working days. Take individual participant timezone into consideration while applying the weekends.

Admin Voice

“Today, it's challenging to manually determine the difference between the time of publishing a program and the time of communication for participants.”

Edit Draft Program

5 Votes

Change steps in program without deleting all subsequent steps

While configuring a program (Draft state), ability to easily add a step anywhere and retain configuration when a step is to be re arranged within the program.

Admin Voice

“This would help prevent errors as adding or rearranging steps without losing configurations, increases the risk of misconfigurations while building huge programs where multiple steps are involved.”

Surveys

4 Votes

Embed surveys within email chain

Introduce a generic editor that is model agnostic.

Allow embedding surveys in a email step in any program.

Admin Voice

“The reason this would be so important is because then I could use other features form the email step program that I can't get in a survey model program (eg, I can't use calculated fields in the conditional wait of a survey model program, to stop reminders from sending out if certain criteria is met)”

Participant Timezone

4 Votes

Schedule programs in user timezone, run multiple times a day

Allow running a program multiple times in a day at specific pre configured hours. The program schedule is adjusted automatically based on the participant timezone. This would allow calculated fields, reports to use the latest data.

Admin Voice

Introduce a generic, model-agnostic editor and connect with external products.

Admin Voice

“Do we have an integration with (or planned for) HubSpot? Managing CS emails separate from other corporate emails/templates is a burden that could probably be overcome through integration.”

03, Design process

Designing against the ranked problems

A deliberate path from divergent ideation to convergent, tested decisions.

01

Brainstorming & feature prioritization

Mapped the problem space and ranked opportunities by admin votes and business impact.

02

User flow

Defined the lifecycle, draft, test, active, edit, version and discard, so the model matched how teams actually work.

03

Exploration & iterations

Pressure-tested concepts against real workflows, iterating quickly on the riskiest interactions.

04

Evolving audience setup

Reworked how participants are sourced and managed, reducing the need to rebuild queries.

05

Streamlining outcomes

Consolidated analytics and management so admins could combine programs and see results in one place.

06

Final designs based on user feedback

Carefully refined to meet what customers actually wanted, making the experience easier and more powerful.

The signature moment

Programs became visual journeys.

Audience, then email, then a decision, then a survey, each step composes into the full Program Builder.

AAudience

@Email

?Decision

SSurvey

The entire orchestration expands into the full Program Builder.

Design evolution

Exploration & iterations

Before arriving at the final experience, I explored multiple ways to simplify setup, reduce confusion, and make the workflow feel more guided. These iterations validated the structure, improved clarity, and aligned product direction with real customer and internal feedback.

Evolving audience setup

The audience setup flow went through multiple explorations to make selection clearer, reduce configuration anxiety, and help admins understand who would enter the program before moving forward.

Option 1

Form-based Setup

Good source breakdown and mapping, but text-heavy and unclear on audience status.

Option 2

Audience Transparency

Better visibility with sync and a participant table, but feels data-heavy and fragmented.

Option 3

Error Handling & Flow

Clear warnings and a modular flow improve usability, with sync guidance and transparent audience management.

Streamlining outcomes

Outcome configuration was refined to make next steps easier to understand, reduce decision fatigue, and help admins connect program actions to measurable business outcomes.

Option 1

Pre-populated Outcomes

All outcomes shown by default, good visibility but cluttered and overwhelming.

Option 2

Minimal Canvas

Only mandatory outcomes shown, with extras added from canvas, cleaner, but more steps.

Option 3

Progressive Disclosure

Displayed count of outcomes, expandable on demand, flexible but low discoverability.

Option 4

Balanced Approach

Key outcomes shown by default, others added as needed, guided yet flexible.

What changed through iteration

These explorations shifted the experience from a configuration-heavy workflow into a guided setup model. The final direction reduced ambiguity, made decisions easier to scan, and gave admins more confidence before publishing or testing their program.

04, The solution

Final designs built around what customers needed

Each capability targets a specific, vote-ranked pain, making program building easier and more powerful for administrators.

// Templates

Reusable templates

Customizable templates for diverse use cases, quick setup without compromising personalization.

// Authoring

Drag & drop

Build and adjust programs on a drag-and-drop canvas, designed for all users and responsive across devices.

// AI-native

AI inline source creation

Create a participant source seamlessly with AI, without leaving the workspace or rebuilding queries.

// Reliability

Versioning

Save and track versions of a program, experiment with changes, and collaborate on active versions safely.

Real-time error detection and highlighting

// Reliability

Real-time error handling

Detect and highlight issues as they happen, helping users identify and correct problems before launch.

// Global

Dynamic participant timezone

Automatically adjust communication timing to each participant’s time zone for seamless global scheduling.

Recap

What the rebuild changed for admins

The old builder asked admins to hold the whole system in their head before they could do anything safely. You needed to know which steps could be changed after publish, what a clone would cost you in analytics, and whether a timezone would quietly break a send. Most of that knowledge lived in people, not in the product.

The rebuild put it back into the workflow. Admins could start from a template instead of a blank canvas, see the journey as a shape rather than a form, create a source without leaving the program, test before publishing, and change things after launch without cloning.

The measurable outcome was setup time. The one that mattered more was confidence: admins stopped needing to be experts in the product's internals before they were allowed to build in it.

Versioning & testing

Experiment without risk.

Clone-and-republish was risky. The new model let admins draft, dry-run, publish, and roll back without disrupting live programs.

Program Versioning and Program Testing were two of the most complex capabilities in this transformation. Each is documented separately, as a deeper case study, to show the product and platform decisions in more depth: Program Versioning and Program Testing.

Draft

Compose safely in a working copy

Test

Dry-run end to end before launch

Publish

Ship with confidence

Rollback

Recover a prior version instantly

05, Outcomes

What the rebuild moved

Templates, AI sourcing, drag-and-drop, versioning, testing, and timezone-aware scheduling came together, and the change showed up in how quickly admins could build and how much they relied on internal teams.

−58%

Program setup time

Faster, simpler builds

+30%

User satisfaction

A more positive experience

+12%

Adoption & engagement

Measured post-launch

−12%

Technical issues & tickets

Higher reliability

Adoption signal

The data told a story.

The release of dynamic programs at the end of 2023 was the primary driver behind a sharp acceleration in adoption, doubling monthly customer growth from 2% to 4% in 2024.

A clear line from the design strategy, dynamic, timezone-aware programs, to a business outcome leadership could see in the data.

What we shipped

→Templates that make overall program building simple and fast

→Advanced AI to create a source seamlessly without leaving the workspace

→Drag-and-drop nodes right on screen

→Versioning to track changes and experiment with configurations

→Testing that keeps programs robust and error-free

→Dynamic participant timezone for communications that send at the right local time

The change for admins

One workspace, one source of truth

After the improvements, admins could effortlessly combine programs and view all analytics in one place, instead of standing up multiple programs and stitching results together. The result was real time saved and a meaningful boost in efficiency.

Ideating next

Testing with dummy data A/B testing Move participants between versions

The transformation

Enterprise software should enable creativity, not constrain it.

Program Builder Templates AI Assistance Versioning Testing

Leadership reflection

What I would sequence differently

The workshop got us the right capabilities. It did not get us the right order.

Versioning and Testing were treated as two of several features on a roadmap, and they were ranked accordingly. But they were not features. They were the platform's model of state, what a program is between draft and live, what happens to a participant mid-journey, what analytics mean across a change. Every other capability sat on top of assumptions about that model, and for a while those assumptions were implicit.

We eventually built the lifecycle model explicitly, and once it existed the hard decisions in Versioning got easier: copy-based drafts, skip-not-delete, cumulative analytics. Those weren't UI choices. They were consequences of the model.

If I were doing it again, the lifecycle model would be the first shared artifact, before the vote ranking, before the first screen, and every capability would be argued against it. It would have cost a few weeks up front and saved more than that in rework.

Want this depth of leadership on your team?

I lead design end to end, from early research through to measurable outcomes.

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