Fast Company Executive Board has published an article by our Principal and Creative Director Goran Paun, titled “How to Redesign Your Legacy Website from Chaos to Clarity.” In this feature, he explores how enterprise-scale website redesigns extend far beyond visual updates, functioning instead as full-scale digital transformations.
Drawing from two decades of experience leading large-scale and institutional web redesign projects, Paun and his Webby-winning team at ArtVersion reflect on how legacy websites often become digital reflections of organizational sprawl—shaped by years of internal structures, competing priorities, and siloed content management practices. The article emphasizes that successful redesigns begin not with aesthetics, but with a deep understanding of systems, processes, and people.
“In large-scale web design, a complexity itself is not the problem, lack of clarity often is.” – Goran Paun
In the piece, Goran outlines a framework of five guiding principles for transforming complex digital ecosystems: mapping entire systems before implementing changes, curating content strategically instead of bulk migration, aligning design systems to real content needs, refining navigation based on user pathways, and prototyping at scale to identify weaknesses early.
Five Guiding Principles
- See the Whole System Before Changing Any One Part: Begin with diagnostics, not design. A full audit of the site’s structure, dependencies, and content usage is essential to understand what’s truly broken—and what still works.
- Curate Legacy Content Strategically, Don’t Migrate in Bulk: Avoid carrying over everything “as is.” Instead, identify what’s essential, consolidate redundant material, and retire outdated or misaligned pages to restore relevance and clarity.
- Align Design Systems with Real Content and User Demand: A scalable design system should mirror how content actually lives within the organization. Components, grids, and typography need to support editorial workflows as much as they enhance visual consistency.
- Let Navigation Earn Its Place: Build navigation around user behavior and language, not internal hierarchies. Simplify, test, and refine menus to reduce cognitive load and improve the path to discovery across devices.
- Prototype at Scale to Reveal Hidden Issues: Test early with real data, full content sets, and multiple breakpoints. Scaled prototyping uncovers system or interaction flaws that static design reviews often miss.
He concludes that redesigning legacy platforms is as much about uncovering clarity as it is about improving usability. “Complexity isn’t the problem,” Paun writes. “Lack of clarity often is.”
The full article is available on Fast Company Executive Board: How to Redesign Your Legacy Website from Chaos to Clarity.