Case Study

StudioONE

Client: The Walt Disney Studios

Background:
Disney Studios manages one of the most complex marketing ecosystems in the entertainment industry. With dozens of theatrical and streaming releases each year, the teams responsible for strategy, promotion, media, creative, publicity, and digital synergy depend on fast access to insights and seamless collaboration.

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Design

Strategy

Results

Research

Case Study

The Challenge

Disney Studios’ marketing organization was operating on an outdated, fragmented ecosystem that could no longer keep pace with the scale and complexity of modern content distribution. Several challenges converged:

  • Fragmented legacy systems — Marketing teams were relying on siloed tools that didn’t talk to each other.
  • Lack of real-time analytics — Executives struggled to make quick, informed decisions without access to timely data.
  • Manual, offline processes — Campaign planning and execution depended heavily on spreadsheets, email, and manual workarounds, which slowed down agility and productivity.
  • Rising complexity — The acquisition of 20th Century Fox and the launch of Disney+ added layers of operational and strategic complexity, requiring new tools and workflows that the old systems couldn’t support.

The result was an environment where teams were working harder but without the visibility or insights needed to scale effectively.

My Role

As Sr. Manager of UX, I was responsible for building and guiding a team of 15 designers, spanning researchers, UX strategists, product designers, and visual designers—both internal and agency partners.

My role extended beyond design delivery:
I collaborated daily with business stakeholders, technology partners, and Disney Studios’ executive leadership to define the product strategy, shape the vision, and oversee execution. This meant balancing strategic alignment at the executive level with the practical realities of designing and delivering at scale.


Case Study

Research

Gathering Insights

To ground the project in real needs, we began by gathering insights from across the organization. This included interviews, workshops, and contextual inquiries with executives, campaign managers, analysts, and creative partners.

  • Executives — wanted timely, consolidated insights to guide high-stakes decisions.
  • Marketing managers — struggled with fragmented tools and lacked a holistic view of campaign performance.
  • Analysts — spent more time cleaning and reconciling data than delivering strategic insights.
  • Creative and publicity teams — were slowed down by manual handoffs and limited visibility into planning timelines.

We also reviewed existing artifacts—spreadsheets, reports, and legacy dashboards—to map pain points and identify opportunities for automation, simplification, and integration.

This early discovery work provided the foundation for our experience vision and product strategy, ensuring solutions addressed the realities of day-to-day workflows while also aligning with executive priorities.

“By the time I have the data I need, the decision has already passed. We can’t keep running marketing at this scale with spreadsheets and guesswork.”

Marketing Executive

Strategy

What Does Success Looks Like

Product Vision

Through research and stakeholder workshops, we validated assumptions and uncovered recurring themes: limited insights, blind spots in campaign planning, and major frustrations in getting to the right information at the right time. Leaders across departments voiced a clear need:

A centralized platform that could power real-time decision-making, enable seamless collaboration, and modernize how marketing campaigns were planned and executed across the Studio.

Desired outcomes included:

  • Real-time, data-driven decision-making for executives.
  • Streamlined business processes to reduce manual effort.
  • Lower operational costs and improved productivity.
  • Better visibility and faster reaction times to shifting market needs.
  • Higher job satisfaction through eliminating repetitive, error-prone tasks.

Experience Principles
To ground the design process, we established six guiding principles:

  • Focused on Real Users — solving actual team and executive needs.
  • Intelligent & Human — leveraging data without overwhelming.
  • Intuitive & Familiar — minimizing learning curves.
  • Contextual & Flexible — adapting to diverse workflows and roles.
  • Trusted & Secure — protecting sensitive Studio information.
  • Performant & Accessible — ensuring reliability across devices and contexts.

These principles became the north star for all design decisions, ensuring consistency as the platform evolved.

Design

Designing & testing

We structured the design effort into two primary workstreams:

  • Executive Views — Dashboards and insights tailored for leadership, focused on high-level visibility and decision-making.
  • Team Workflows — Tools and workflows designed to support campaign planning, creative approvals, and day-to-day marketing execution.

Key design challenges included:

  • Information architecture — defining global, local, and contextual navigation systems to serve different user types.
  • Interaction models — creating a modular, flexible UI that minimized information density and avoided data overload.
  • Customization vs. standardization — balancing out-of-the-box efficiency with the need for teams to adapt the platform to unique workflows.

Mobility Strategy

Context was critical in designing for executives. While many workflows required robust desktop functionality, leaders needed a streamlined mobile experience to make quick decisions wherever they were. We approached mobile not as a smaller version of the desktop, but as a purpose-built companion app.

  • On-the-Go — Executives could view dashboards, approve requests, receive timely notifications, and escalate issues instantly. This ensured business continuity during travel, meetings, or live events.
  • In-Office — More complex tasks such as data entry, editing campaign details, and managing workflows remained optimized for desktop, where context, screen space, and input methods were better suited.

This dual approach respected the realities of executive workflows, ensuring speed and focus on mobile, while preserving depth and flexibility on desktop.

Machine Intelligence

Introducing automation and machine intelligence was one of the most sensitive challenges. Many teams feared it might replace jobs or diminish human oversight. Our design approach reframed automation as a supportive ally:

  • Positioned intelligence as a way to eliminate repetitive, low-value tasks (e.g., data cleanup, reminder scheduling).
  • Highlighted opportunities for reducing errors and delays, rather than “replacing people.”
  • Provided clear explanations and controls, so users could trust the system’s recommendations and override when needed.

By designing automation as transparent and assistive, adoption improved and skepticism decreased.

Design System Integration

The platform was an opportunity to not only modernize workflows, but also to showcase Disney’s refreshed design language. We aligned the product with Disney’s latest design system, ensuring consistency across apps, marketing platforms, and Studio experiences.

  • Integrated the new visual identity, typography, and color palette.
  • Standardized patterns and components across executive dashboards and team tools.
  • Ensured scalability, so future teams and vendors could adopt the system easily.

This provided both brand cohesion and technical efficiency, reinforcing trust while reducing design and engineering overhead.

Results

Bringing it all together

Phase 1 (MVP)

The first release delivered tangible value:

  • 27 theatrical releases from 20th Century Studios were successfully onboarded and managed through the new platform.
  • Supported Disney+ campaigns, proving the system’s scalability and flexibility during a high-profile launch.
  • Built momentum among executives and teams, demonstrating that a unified platform could reduce complexity and establish the foundation for long-term adoption across Studio Marketing.
Studios Design System
StudioONE

Launch & Adoption

27

theatrical releases from 20th Century Studios onboarded during rollout.

30%

Disney+ campaigns launched with improved speed and scalability.

40%

Pilot teams cut reporting tasks and gained decision-making confidence.

Next Steps

Phase 1 (MVP) validated the vision, but the roadmap focused on scaling impact further:

  • Deliver value early — Continue prioritizing executive views and critical data points to sustain leadership engagement.
  • Expand breadth — Extend architecture to cover more workflows, migrate legacy data, consolidate redundant tools, and integrate additional systems.
  • Validate continuously — Ongoing research, usability testing, and feedback loops to refine and confirm design decisions as adoption grew.

The next steps aimed to move from proof of value to a comprehensive, enterprise-wide platform.

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