All case studies8 min read

UX Case Study · Internal Tool · Marketing Ops

ChillXP — One Form to a Client-Ready Case Study

Turning a fragmented, manual process into a structured, brand-consistent system.

RoleLead UX Designer

ClientChill, Australia

Duration2-Week Sprint

PlatformInternal ERP Module

Launched · 100% Adoption

01 / 17Impact

Impact at a glance

What the System Delivered in Its First Quarter

40+Case Studies GeneratedIn Q1 post-launch alone

100%Team AdoptionWithin the very first month

5→1Tools ConsolidatedInto one single platform

0Brand InconsistenciesEnforced by a fixed, locked template

The problem

Before ChillXP, Every Pitch Started From Scratch

Every client pitch meant building a case study from scratch. Different team members. Different tools. Different branding. Every time.

In their words

I'd rather write three case studies than format one. — Chill marketing team member

The Same Painful Cycle — Every Single Time

Open a toolPowerPoint, Google Slides or Canva — whichever the team member preferred that day.

Hunt for assetsDig through old presentations for the right logo, images and brand colours.

Rebuild from scratchNo template existed, so every layout was improvised from memory.

Write, format, review3–4 rounds of feedback, mostly about fonts and colours, not the actual work.

Export and hopeSend a PDF and hope nothing looked wrong on the client's screen.

What the Manual Process Actually Cost

5–6 hoursPer Case StudyMinimum, every single time

8 out of 10Had Brand InconsistenciesVisible on review

5+ toolsIn Active UseNo shared standard across the team

The ask

Build an internal tool that enforces the brand and lets the team focus on what actually matters — the story. New members had no guidance and it showed. Feedback loops were wasted on formatting, not narrative. The brand guide existed — nobody followed it.

My role

End-to-End Ownership

From discovery through to launch — and every decision in between. The users were also the stakeholders, so the job needed both user advocacy and business alignment.

Discovery & ResearchInterviews, workflow observation, and a time study across 3 live case study sessions.

UX StrategyScope, information architecture and user flows built from the ground up.

Interaction DesignWireframes through high-fidelity, covering every screen and edge case.

Dev CollaborationHandoff, QA and iteration through the full build cycle.

Discovery

Two Days of Watching Was Enough

Before opening a design tool, I watched the marketing team produce three case studies end to end. What I found wasn't a team doing their jobs badly — it was a team doing an impossible job by hand.

85%Formatting & Asset SourcingTime spent formatting, sourcing assets and fixing brand inconsistencies

15%Actual Content & StoryTime left for the work that actually mattered

The team didn't need motivation or better habits. They needed a system that made the right thing the easy thing.

Research

6 Interviews, One Clear Insight

Six interviews over two weeks. The same pains came up again and again.

Pain point	How many said it	In their words
Takes too long	6/6	"I'd rather write three case studies than format one"
No consistent templates	6/6	"Every person does it differently"
Hard to find assets	5/6	"I spend an hour just finding the right logo"
Too many revision rounds	5/6	"90% of feedback is about fonts and colours, not the work"
Can't update after sending	4/6	"We send a PDF and then the work changes and we have to resend"
No brand guide anyone follows	4/6	"The brand guide exists, nobody actually uses it"

They didn't need a better template.

They needed a default they couldn't break.

Staying on-brand had to stop being a discipline to maintain.

Users

Three Working Modes, One Interface

The same interface had to serve three jobs, each with its own fear.

The BuilderCreating a new case study for a client pitch. Needs speed and confidence. Fear: it'll look wrong to the client.

The ReviewerThe marketing lead signing off. Needs reliable, consistent output every time. Fear: the client sees something off-brand.

The CustomiserAdapting an existing case study for a new context. Needs to change what's needed without rebuilding. Fear: I'll break the layout.

Key decisions

Three Decisions That Shaped the Product

One-Page Form, Not a Multi-Step Wizard

ProblemA wizard is the standard pattern for form-heavy tools — less to think about per step. But it hides the full picture and forces step-by-step thinking on a task that isn't linear.

DecisionEvery input on one scrollable page, the whole picture always visible.

ResultIt matches how the team actually thinks about a case study — as a whole, not in sections. Trade-off accepted: a longer page means more scrolling, handled with clear section grouping and a logical top-to-bottom flow.

Fixed Brand-Locked Template, Not an Open Editor

ProblemAn open editor gives full creative freedom over fonts, colours and layouts — but that recreates the exact problem we were solving, except now the system gets the blame.

DecisionOne locked output. The team fills in the content; the system handles the presentation.

ResultZero formatting decisions, zero brand inconsistencies, every output client-ready. Research showed 8 of 10 case studies had brand inconsistencies — the guardrails weren't a constraint, they were the product's core value.

Two User Roles

ProblemThe system had to serve two kinds of user with different levels of trust and responsibility.

DecisionBasic users create, edit and save case studies. Admins do all that, plus manage users and the team's full case study library.

ResultThe marketing lead kept full control without needing a developer for routine tasks — admins onboard new members and manage the library independently, keeping the system self-sufficient.

"You never have to make this decision again."

How I framed the locked template to the team.

Pushback

Where I Had to Fight

Engineering: "Let's build separate forms per section."Their rationale: modular forms are easier to build and test on their own. My position: separate forms fragment the mental model — services, location and images are related decisions, and splitting them loses that context. Outcome: a single-page unified form. More upfront complexity, but one coherent experience.

Stakeholders: "The team should be able to change anything."Their rationale: creative professionals shouldn't feel constrained by a tool. My position: the tool's entire value was brand consistency. An open editor would just recreate the problem — slower. The guardrails were the product. Outcome: a fixed template with tiered access.

The solution · 01

One Form That Captures Everything

One single-page form that captures everything a case study needs in one view — so the Builder sees the whole thing at once and never fears "it'll look wrong." Nothing to assemble, nothing to format.

The standout moment

The interactive Australia map was the interaction people remembered. Selecting a state lit up the region live on the map — a small touch that turned a dull location field into the "wow" beat clients reacted to in every pitch.

What it captures

Client DetailsLogo upload, client testimonial and the experience narrative.

Services & ImpactMulti-select service icons, sample count and activation duration.

Location & TypeAn interactive Australia map with state/city dropdowns and activation type.

Meta & MediaClient name, product details, an auto-generated URL and image upload.

The solution · 02

Submit, and the Presentation Is Already Done

The moment the form is submitted, the system generates the finished, brand-consistent presentation — no layout work, no formatting choices, ready to share or download as a PDF.

This is the guardrail made visible: every output looks the same because the team never touches the presentation.

What the client sees

Brand-Locked StructureChill and client logo, case study title, product gallery and the Experience narrative, in a fixed layout every time.

Rich Visual DataServices shown with icons, impact metrics, activation type and a highlighted Australia map for location.

Client-Ready DeliveryChill office contact details across NSW, VIC, QLD and WA, and a one-click PDF download.

The solution · 03

The Admin Layer That Removed the Developer

Not the headline features — but critical to making the system self-managed, with no developer dependency for routine operations.

DashboardLive counts of total cases, users and admins, plus Recently Added Users and Cases tables with quick actions.

Manage UsersA sortable table of name, username, user type and email, an Add User form that captures credentials and role, and a per-user action menu.

Manage CasesA full sortable, searchable table of every case study, with pagination so the system scales as the library grows.

Change Password ModalTriggered from the user action menu; three fields handled in place without navigating away.

Results

What Changed

Metric	Before ChillXP	After ChillXP
Case study creation time	5–6 hours	Significantly reduced
Revision rounds per case study	3–4 rounds	1 round
Brand inconsistencies per review	8 out of 10	0 out of 10
Tools used across the team	5+ tools	1 tool
Case studies produced (Q1)	~8 (bandwidth-limited)	40+
Team adoption	—	100% within the first month

Feedback in review meetings shifted entirely away from formatting. Discussions became about content, positioning and narrative — where they should have always been.

— what the numbers don't show

Retrospective

What I'd Do Differently

Research the client-side experience earlierChillXP was designed entirely around the marketing team — but case studies are consumed by clients. Including 2–3 client interviews in early research would have surfaced how they read, share and judge a case study.

Design the image upload experience properlyAsset sourcing ate ~90 minutes per observed session. The built solution is a basic file upload — a curated, organised image library would have hit one of the highest-friction points directly. It deserved its own design sprint.

Define the URL sharing flow earlierThe auto-generated project link is genuinely useful, but its behaviour — whether it updates after edits, how it's shared — wasn't fully designed. Clarifying that earlier would have made it a more intentional feature.

The Full Story

A 2-week sprint. One designer. One product. A complete change in how a marketing team works.

The Problem5–6 hours per case study, 5+ tools, no brand standard, 85% of time spent on formatting instead of storytelling.

The ApproachTwo days of watching before designing, six research interviews, three major UX decisions defended with evidence.

What Was BuiltOne module inside Chill's internal ERP: a single-page form, a fixed brand-locked template, an auto-generated shareable URL, PDF download, and full user and case management with tiered Basic/Admin access.

User Interface

The generated, brand-locked output.

Like how I work? Let's build the next one.

You've just read how I think — the research, the trade-offs, the decisions I defended and the ones I'd make differently. I'm open to Lead and Senior Product Designer roles, remote, hybrid or in-office. Tell me what you're building and I'll tell you where I'd start.

huseini@uxchronicle.com More case studies