Variations: Designing a faster way to scale approved creative
Overview
Scaling creative used to mean restarting the whole project process from the brief.
I led the design of a new flow that lets users create variations from approved creative - reducing friction, simplifying workflows, and now accounting for more than 40% of all platform output.
Role
Lead designer
Timeline
10 months
The problem
Our customers needed a faster way to scale content once creative had been approved, but the platform only supported full project creation through the original brief flow. This meant teams had to restart the entire process just to make small format or copy changes, slowing down turnaround times and increasing manual work for internal teams.
Creating a variation
Goal
To make it easier and quicker for marketing teams to request variations of their approved creative without having to navigate a new brief.
Discovery & flow mapping
I started by speaking with:
- Customers → to understand how they currently made variations
- Internal production → to uncover friction in managing new formats or edits
- Customer teams → to refine naming and language in the flow
I broke the experience into clear user actions:
- How do users enter the flow?
- What do internal vs. external users see?
- How are variations reviewed and approved?
- How do users add or scale formats?
Research showing customers asks - minor changes to old projects in new briefs
Process & approach
I was essentially designing for 2 key use cases:
- Requesting variations of approved creative
- Scaling up a concept into new formats - different ratios, durations or platforms.
Due to concerns around impact on the production team, I split the process. Customers could either create variations of approved assets, or scale approved assets into new formats. Not both at once.
Mapping user flows
Defining terminology
Early exploration of entering the variation flow
Key design moves
Modular entry pointThis allowed users to start from either approved creative or brief
Terminology alignmentCollaborated with CX and production to refine copy for clarity
Progressive disclosureShowed relevant options only at key moments to reduce cognitive overload
Dev-ready flowsDelivered clearly labelled Figma files + short walkthrough videos to align stakeholders across the business
Creating variations
Scaling with new formats
Outcomes
- Successfully launched the new Variations flow
- Now accounts for ~30% of all deliverables through the platform
- Reduced friction for clients and improved handoff to production
- Built alignment across PM, engineering, customer success, and production
- Provided a new foundation for scaling future features
“It’s amazing because I can’t imagine how tedious it would have been to keep submitting a brand new brief. If you took that away I would riot.”
Brooklyn
King Arthur NAM
“How quick and easy this feature is!”
Michelle
Nestlé AUS
Reflection
This project showed the value of clarity, not just in UI, but in process. By aligning early with stakeholders, breaking the experience into logical steps, and reducing ambiguity in copy and flow, we launched something simple, scalable, and genuinely impactful.
Next steps
I’ve been working on enhancements to the variation flow as a key part of the Delivery/Review/Revise flow since launch. We’ve just released a pretty big update which was one of our initial challenges - allowing users to create a variation and scale together.
Latest scaling update - create a variation + scale with new formats
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