RETHINK Retail
·
2026
Rethink Retail, rebuilt around its communities
They asked for a magazine and a members’ club in one. The real job was making one site clear for two audiences.
Client
RETHINK Retail
My role
Lead UX: discovery, research, architecture, wireframes, UI direction
Timeline
6 weeks
Team
Me and one design colleague; brand track ran separately
Results
What six weeks produced
fewer page templates
The old site built a new page for every event and community. Now they share templates.
page templates designed
Desktop, with mobile layouts designed rather than stacked
competitors benchmarked
Across trade publications, paid research and community platforms
These numbers come from our own scoping and delivery, not post-launch analytics. The −40% compares the shared templates with the one-off pages the old site kept adding. The client’s numbers will follow after launch.
The brief
What they asked for, and what they needed
Brief notes from the kickoff · May 2026
“Magazine feel: a retail media publication. Community focused, like Chief. Website architecture: mega menu and pages.”
What they asked for
A site that feels like a magazine and a members’ club at once.
What they actually needed
One clear answer to who the site is for: retail leaders, and the brands that want to reach them, each routed from the first screen.
RETHINK ran four businesses under one name: media, events, five executive communities and an advisory arm. The old homepage tried to say all of it and ended up saying none of it. Magazine or club was the wrong question. The advantage was being both, for two audiences, in one structure.
The problem
Four businesses, two audiences, one unclear homepage
RETHINK had grown from a publication into media, events, communities and advisory, serving retail leaders and the tech vendors who want to reach them. The site didn’t say who it was for, and every new event or community had been getting its own one-off page.
01
Nobody saw themselves in it
The homepage didn’t declare who it was for, so neither retail leaders nor vendors found their way in.
02
The community was invisible
Member rosters and community programmes existed, but the site gave them no real home, so RETHINK’s strongest proof stayed hidden.
03
The commercial engine read like an article
The advisory offer for vendors sat on the page as a content block, not something you could buy.
04
A new page for everything
Events and communities each got bespoke pages, so the page count kept growing and nothing felt like one system.
Process
How I approached it
Step 01
Discovery with the client
I sent the founder and leadership a questionnaire, went through their answers, then ran a deep-dive workshop call to get to the intent behind the brief.
Step 02
Research across 58 sources
Four tracks (brand, industry, users, trends), synthesised into five design moves I wouldn’t compromise on and three open questions for the founder.
Step 03
Benchmarking 14 competitors
Trade publications, paid research and community platforms, in three tiers. Each one won on a single axis. None of them combined editorial, events, community and advisory.
Step 04
Architecture before screens
Sitemap, mega-menu navigation and page architecture were agreed before any wireframes, so every event and community could share templates.
Key decisions
What I changed, and why
01
Route two audiences from the first screen
One structure, two ways in. Retail leaders and brands each see themselves in the hero, without splitting the site in two.
02
Give every community a front door
Each of the five communities got its own home: what it is, who’s in it, upcoming events and how to apply. Peer presence is what retail leaders check first, so the page leads with the room.
03
Templates, not one-off pages
Events, communities and content share templates. It cut page templates by about 40% and lets the team publish without a designer.
04
Let the client’s pushback sharpen it
Feedback pushed for a more media-forward homepage and a clear door for brands. The final kept community first, brought the latest articles and podcasts up the page, and put Partner With Us in the top navigation.
Reflection
What I took away
01
A brief that asks for two things is usually asking you to decide. Here the answer was both, structured properly.
02
Designing the template system saved more than any single screen did.
03
Client pushback made V2 better. Media-forward and community-first turned out not to be opposites.
04
Research earns you the right to push back. Fifty-eight sources made the community-as-product case hard to argue with.
Every desktop template from the final round, side by side.
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