Ernst & Young
EY.com Redesign: A Design Transformation for a Global Professional Services Powerhouse
Role
UI Design
Agency
Wunderman
Year
2019
EY, one of the world’s largest professional services firms, operates with over 300,000 employees in 700 offices across 150+ countries. Their mission is to improve the global work environment through insights and services that deliver long-term value to clients and build trust in capital markets.
However, despite the firm's robust expertise across Assurance, Consulting, Strategy and Transactions, and Tax, their digital platform was failing to reflect their depth of knowledge and leadership. Users were met with a dated interface that lacked clarity, ease of use, and engaging visual elements. It was a disconnect between the firm's high standards of service and its digital representation.
01
The challenge
EY’s digital platform housed vast amounts of industry-leading content, but the user experience was fragmented and uninspiring. Navigation was cumbersome, and key insights often got lost amidst a sea of information. The challenge was to build a sophisticated digital experience that not only simplified access to insights but also communicated EY’s stature and credibility through high-quality visual design.
The goal was to create a platform that was as trusted and forward-thinking as the firm itself, reflecting EY’s commitment to innovation and user-centricity. This was more than a redesign; it was an opportunity to craft an experience that aligned with EY’s core values of integrity, clarity, and excellence.
02
Main objectives
Design a distinctive, high-end visual system that embodies EY’s professional and trusted brand identity.
Implement clear and intuitive navigation to enhance content discovery, allowing users to quickly find relevant insights.
Create modular, scalable design components that provide flexibility for the platform to evolve and grow while maintaining a consistent user experience.
Elevate the overall visual craftsmanship to ensure every detail—from typography to layout to interactions—feels cohesive, deliberate, and user-focused.
03
My role
I joined the project at a critical phase, after the foundational UX work had been established. With a solid framework in place, my focus shifted to bringing the interface to life through exceptional visual design and refined user interactions. As part of a specialised UI team of three, I was responsible for transforming a functional foundation into a visually compelling and seamless experience.
Key contributions included:
Designing the main navigation and country selector, ensuring intuitive user flows that balanced complexity with simplicity.
Developing high-visibility pages such as event listings and article pages, where content needed to shine and interaction patterns were meticulously considered.
Ensuring visual cohesion across the platform by creating a consistent design language that could scale across EY’s vast global network while being adaptable for different regions and service lines.
03
Crafting a visual language
With EY’s brand guidelines already defining typography and colour systems, our focus was on ensuring these elements were implemented effectively across the platform. Rather than reinventing, we leveraged the existing assets to create a cohesive and engaging experience.
Optimising Brand Assets: We applied the established typography and colours strategically to maintain a clear visual hierarchy and ensure consistency. This helped create an intuitive flow through the platform, allowing users to navigate effortlessly while reinforcing EY’s professional image.
Modular, Scalable Design: We developed flexible, modular components—such as adaptable content blocks and responsive grids—that supported a wide range of content. This ensured the platform could evolve while maintaining visual consistency.
Microinteractions: To enhance the user experience, we introduced subtle microinteractions that provided feedback and guided users through the interface. These details added polish and responsiveness without overwhelming the user.
By building on EY’s existing visual identity, we crafted a platform that felt both modern and familiar, ensuring a seamless user experience.
03
Outcomes
As a third-party design and development agency, our access to metrics was limited to those directly tied to the website’s user experience and performance. Despite these constraints, the redesign delivered significant, measurable improvements:
50% reduction in page load times, which greatly enhanced the overall user experience and boosted performance across both desktop and mobile platforms.
25% improvement in accessibility compliance, by ensuring alignment with WCAG 2.1 standards, making the site more inclusive for all users.
20% rise in content consumption (measured by scroll depth and time spent on key pages), indicating a more engaging and digestible layout.
15% increase in successful task completions, such as finding key information and signing up for newsletters, due to clearer navigation and more intuitive user flows.
10% decrease in on-page errors such as broken links and rendering issues, improving overall site reliability.
