When Bristol Myers Squibb approached Siegel+Gale in 2019, they were looking to update their identity to mark their acquisition of Celgene. As part of Siegel+Gale's efforts to develop and roll out a new identiy in early, my team worked to define that identity in digital contexts, and to apply it to BMS' digital properties, beginning with BMS.com. These activites quickly became a longstanding partnership, as Siegel+Gale helped BMS stakeholders—both on the web team and otherwise—to recognize the importance of the web to their larger brand and communications efforts.

Reskin and strategy

Our initial discussions with BMS about their corporate website were shaped by timing: less than two months stood between that January date and the forthcoming March launch of the new brand.

We prepared a rapid reskin of BMS.com, but we recognized that such a reskin wouldn't address some of the usability issues we saw. Built on Adobe Experience Manager, the site had last been redesigned in 2017, and prominently featured a unique (yet confusing) approach to site navigation, and generally cumbersome design. The navigation was the most obvious, but far from the only area that we saw for improvement, and during this early phase, we logged the opportunities we found.

While we worked on the reskin, we collaborated with the clients in creating a roadmap for a comprehensive redesign of the site. This roadmap encompassed not only potential new features, but an understanding of organizational capabilities: we derioritized several features because, given other organizational priorities, client IT teams would not be able to allocate the necessary resources to developing those features.

Testing and prototyping

To build the case for an alternative approach We conducted both formal and guerilla usability testing of the existing navigation, and advanced several concepts for the revised navigation. To conduct formal testing, because our design relied on several different states of open menus and submenus, we built a prototype using Framer. Testing found this approach to be significantly clearer to users (to say nothing with in line with the new brand identity). With findings in hand, we worked to get the stakeholder buy-in we needed to move forward with a change from the existing approach.

Content considerations

As part of their acquisition of Celgene, BMS needed to integrate relevant content from the existing Celgene website before eventually sunsetting that site. Siegel+Gale conducted an extensive content audit and migration strategy, including establishing content quality and relevance criteria for the Celgene site, and socializing these recommendations with relevant stakeholders. Planning for this migration meant finding suitable places in the existing BMS information architecture for the Celgene content to live, and to note where and when existing metadata would need to be adjusted.

Beyond integrating Celgene's content, BMS aimed to revamp their branded publication Life & Science Magazine. In giving this brand journalism content a greater prominence on the site through curation and revamped metadata-driven recommendations, we helped BMS to recognize greater value out of a content library they'd already spent years creating.

Extending the system

In fall, 2020, the new site launched, but we continued to partner with BMS on additional site features, and projects beyond the corporate site. Chief among these was helping BMS to operationalize the design system we'd begun developing during the course of our design efforts.