Marketing Tech · B2B SaaS · Enterprise

Aurora: Architecting aUnified Campaign Ecosystem at Scale

Aurora runs campaigns for a global martech suite. Helio was rebuilding the frontend anyway, so I used that window to rethink the whole thing.

Aurora by Helio

Case study

RoleLead Product Designer (Experience Transformation, UI Architecture, Design System)

ScaleHundreds of enterprise brands · 7 development epics · 3 sister products onboarded

The Challenge

The product was built by engineers with no designer involved. To start a campaign you had to leave the dashboard, wait for a separate page to load, and then find the create button on that page. That was three clicks before you did any work. The dashboard only showed the runs from the previous day and any queries that had failed. It also cut off long journey names, so people had to hover over them and wait for a tooltip to see which campaign was which. On top of that, designers on the other Helio products worked separately, so the same task looked different in each one. Customers were raising support tickets about it.

Our Solution

Everything now happens on one screen. Creating a journey moved onto the dashboard, so it takes one click instead of three. Journey names show in full. There is a quarter filter for looking back at previous quarters, and warnings and alerts sit at the top of the page. The advanced rules are all still there, they just stay hidden until you open them. The whole thing runs on a Figma kit that is linked to Azure DevOps, and that is how it ended up being used across seven epics and three other products.

The unified journey creator — The whole journey on one page, with no wizard and no next button.

3 → 1

clicks to create a journey

SUS, up from 51

components shipped

sister products onboarded

01Operating Context and Enterprise Constraints

No designer had worked on this product before me. Three things shaped what I could do:

The rebuild clockMy designs had to be ready inside engineering's sprints. If I missed one, that screen would ship with the old design on it.

Breaking the silosDesigners on the different Helio products worked separately, so the same task was built a different way in each product. Customers noticed and raised tickets about it.

Enterprise nuanceCustomers were asking for more control, so removing the advanced options was never on the table. They had to be hidden until someone needed them.

Journey creation, the basics first — The same page twice: on the left the default view, on the right what it looks like with every rule opened.

The full rule set, on request — The same page twice: on the left the default view, on the right what it looks like with every rule opened.

02The UX Audit: Dashboard and Journey Friction

I ran a heuristic sweep and a few stakeholder workshops before I sketched anything. Most of the problems turned out to be in the first few minutes of someone's day, on the Home Dashboard.

What the audit found

3 clicks

to start a journey

Leave the dashboard, wait for the Journey page, hunt for the button.

1 day

of journey history

The dashboard only showed the runs from the previous day. Anything older was not visible at all.

Hover to read

journey names

Marketers used long, specific names to tell campaigns apart. The interface cut them short, so you had to hover and wait for a tooltip.

Failed queries

the only alert

That is helpful while you are testing, but it does very little for day to day campaign work.

14 fields

on first load

There was no help text and no validation until you submitted the form. A third of new users gave up at the audience step.

7 of 12

screens failed WCAG AA

The inputs had no labels, the focus order was broken, and the schedule grid could not be reached with a keyboard.

03Architectural Pivot: The Unified Command Center

Marketers were not asking for a cleverer tool, they wanted to stop switching between pages. So I moved the things they used most onto the screen they already had open.

Start from the dashboardThe main actions are on the dashboard now, so creating a journey takes one click instead of three.

Names you can readI rebuilt the components so the full journey name fits on the card. There is nothing to hover over.

A year of historyA quarter filter lets you look back at previous quarters. Warnings and alerts moved to the top of the page.

The journey creator, content tab — One click from the dashboard gets you the whole thing.

Properties, monthly cadence — The monthly and custom views. Each one says in plain English what will be sent and when.

Properties, custom cadence — The monthly and custom views. Each one says in plain English what will be sent and when.

04Field Validation and Iteration

I tested the prototypes with real campaign managers before any code was written. It got the stakeholders to agree early and it meant engineering was not building on a guess. By the last round the only feedback left was about wording and labels.

Who we tested with

Persona	Needs to	Held back by
MayaCRM Manager	Ship the weekly newsletter in under 30 minutes	Re-entering audience filters
TomásMarketing Ops Lead	Compare performance across past quarters	A dashboard that only shows yesterday
RiyaJunior Copywriter	Generate variations to compare quickly	Blank-page paralysis on body copy

participants, 2 rounds

50 min

moderated remote sessions

scenarios per session

Figma · Maze · Dovetail

tools

Results

91%

Task completion

+33 pts

8.4 min

Setup time

−55%

Schedule errors

−78%

SUS

+27 pts

The prototype, basic fields — The flows campaign managers tested, weeks before any code was written.

The prototype, weekly cadence — The flows campaign managers tested, weeks before any code was written.

05Scalability and Engineering Integration

The kit is a Figma library built on Helio's new brand guidelines. Every component is linked to its Azure DevOps story, so engineering never had to guess what I meant. It ended up covering seven epics, and after that new features stopped looking different from each other.

52 components, 8 token setsEnough to cover the journey and composer flows completely, with each component tied to its ticket.

3 surfaces back-filledAudience Builder, Reports and Admin all picked up the kit without any new design work.

Monthly cross-product reviewDesigners from the other products joined a review once a month. They shared tokens and had a way to contribute back, which is what kept everything consistent.

Blocks library — The blocks library, the in-block actions and the assist panel, all built once in the kit and reused across the suite.

Contextual actions inside a block — The blocks library, the in-block actions and the assist panel, all built once in the kit and reused across the suite.

06Strategic Retrospective

Key learnings

Counting switches mattered more than counting clicks The click count went from three to one, but the bigger saving was that a marketer could see the status of every journey as soon as they opened the tool, so they were not hunting for where they had got to.
A design system belongs in the delivery process Linking the Figma kit to Azure DevOps meant engineering could pick components straight off the ticket. Without that link it would have just been a style guide.

The product in use — The workspace as it shipped, in Helio's design language.

Thank you

Thanks for reading.

Happy to walk through any part of this in more detail, including the decisions that did not make it.

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