When the replatform effort faltered, I led a strategic pivot to deliver a brand expression reskin in-house which protected our time, embodied our brand, and kept business-critical Shoe and Bra Finders on track.
Project Background
Brooks’ Shoe and Bra Finders are critical tools on brooksrunning.com, guiding runners to the right product and driving meaningful revenue. Customers who complete the Shoe Finder quiz convert at 4.5% compared to the sitewide average of just under 3%. The tool drives about 12% of daily site revenue with an 80% completion rate and about 55K monthly users. The Bra Finder, though smaller at ~500 monthly users, converts at nearly 8%.
In 2024, Brooks launched a new brand platform, “Let’s Run There,” replacing the long-standing “Run Happy.” This required major digital touchpoints, including the Shoe Finder, to be updated on a tight timeline. At the same time, a major effort to replatform the Finders was struggling. Our vendor was behind on quality, budget, and delivery, and could not handle the added scope of reskinning the UI for the brand launch.
Problem Definition
The Finders faced two pressures:
Vendor risk: slipping timelines, budget, and quality threatened the replatforming effort.
Brand urgency: Finders needed to reflect “Let’s Run There” in time for launch.
Brooks was at risk of entering a key brand moment with outdated tools and losing traction on one of its highest-converting experiences.
Approach & Process
A strategic decision was needed. How might we stay on track and protect these tools? I worked with the team to propose a pivot to leadership, shift scope to brand expression updates only and design the reskin in-house.
My reasoning:
Protect time and brand: Onboarding a new vendor would cause delays, and no one could capture Brooks’ voice as authentically as our Creative and UX teams.
Showcase internal talent: We had built a strong Creative Lab with digital designers and writers. This was a chance to highlight their capability on a high-profile project.
Meet deadlines: By focusing on a brand expression reskin, we could deliver immediate value in 2024 aligned with “Let’s Run There” while engineering regrouped.
While design delivered the reskin, the technical team opened an RFP to secure a new vendor for the future replatform.
Design Updates:
Applied new brand visuals: refreshed background imagery, simplified typography, bolder layout.
Added a more accessible header menu and progress indicator.
Updated cushion positioning messaging with clearer descriptions.
Standardized spacing and layout with Shoelace Design System patterns.
Retained some video assets with fallback stills for performance and timing.
Solution
Brand Expression — The reskin launched in November 2024 ahead of the holiday sales period. It ensured consistency with “Let’s Run There” and preserved a tool critical to revenue.
Replatforming — After the RPF, we selected a new vendor, EPAM, and in August 2025, the full Finders replatform launched. It delivered:
A no-code configurator (employee facing tool) for rapid updates to Shoe and Bra Finders.
Performance and accessibility improvements.
Usability fixes to the Bra Finder based on prior research: removing discouraging copy, reducing loading interruptions, and clarifying confusing language.
A decoupled architecture from SFCC that made Finders a standalone cloud service, enabling future scalability.
The configurator was a major unlock, letting the team extend improvements to the Bra Finder and implement fixes first identified in a 2022 study. This was beyond what we were scoped to deliver.
Results & Impact
Maintained holiday readiness by pivoting to an in-house brand expression reskin.
Delivered brand alignment with “Let’s Run There” on a key customer touchpoint.
Protected revenue: Shoe Finder continued driving ~12% of daily site revenue from 55K monthly users with 80% completion rate.
Elevated Bra Finder: research-backed fixes improved clarity and sustained nearly 8% conversion among ~500 monthly users.
Future-proofed the platform: decoupling from Salesforce gave Brooks greater flexibility, scalability, and speed.
Positioned Finders as the Runner Path Digital Service, with a roadmap for AI-driven personalization, chat guidance, and global rollout.
Reflection & Learnings
This project showed the value of strategic design leadership in moments of risk. By pivoting scope and bringing design in-house, I ensured we protected deadlines and embodied our brand during a critical launch.
It also reinforced the power of research-backed iteration: usability insights from 2022 shaped Bra Finder improvements in 2025, built quickly in the new configurator, proving the long shelf life of strong UX research.
Finally, it demonstrated the role of UX in balancing short-term pivots with long-term goals, using incremental steps like a reskin to meet urgent business needs while paving the way for sustainable transformation.