Background
Creating cultural and commercial value
From idea to scalable platform for representation, creativity, and community built for long-term growth.
EF English Live (formerly EF Englishtown) operates as a global online English language school across multiple countries and languages. Digital acquisition drives growth. The website functions as both marketing engine and product gateway.
As the business expanded internationally, digital maturity varied across markets. Brand expression drifted. UX patterns diverged. Testing practices matured unevenly.
At the same time, learner behaviour was shifting decisively toward mobile.
Scope
Digital brand alignment, UX strategy, CMS replatforming (Adobe Experience), Design system & pattern library, performance optimisation, cross-market enablement
Creative timeline
12 months
Industry
Education
Location
London
My role
Global Creative Studio Manager
challenge
Scaling trust in a fragmented global product
EF Englishtown was growing quickly across regions, but growth exposed structural inconsistency.
Markets operated independently. Brand expression drifted. UX patterns varied. Optimisation maturity differed by region. What worked in one country was not easily shared with another.
At the same time, the platform itself was evolving. The product needed to feel modern, mobile-first, and digitally native. It had to compete with global education providers while maintaining premium positioning.
The challenge was not simply redesign. It was alignment.
- How do you unify brand, UX, and performance without restricting local agility?
- How do you modernise the experience while protecting commercial momentum?
Scale needed discipline.
Audience
Ambitious, mobile-first global learners
EF English Live serves adults investing in opportunity.
Learners span Europe, Asia, Latin America, and North America. Many are working professionals balancing study with careers and family life. Others are preparing for international relocation, exam certification, or corporate advancement.
Mobile usage dominates across growth markets. Flexibility is essential. Clarity builds confidence. When navigation is intuitive and messaging coherent, trust increases.
These users are not casually browsing. They are making high-consideration decisions about their future.
The experience must signal credibility, structure, and long-term value from the first interaction.
Goals
What success required
Brand
Create one recognisable digital identity across all markets.
Mobile
Design for mobile behaviour, not desktop adaptation.
Scalability
Build a system that scales without diluting the brand.
Optimisation
Embed experimentation into the platform, not as an afterthought.
Efficiency
Increase launch velocity without increasing complexity.
Growth
Align creative decisions directly with acquisition performance.
Approach
Sharp strategy. Thoughtful design. No surface-level thinking.
This was not a cosmetic redesign. It was a systemic reset. The work followed a structured path: diagnose fragmentation, define shared standards, rebuild the infrastructure, and enable teams to scale within a coherent system.
Discovery
Understand before you unify
We audited global websites, landing journeys, and email campaigns to identify UX inconsistencies and performance gaps. Acquisition data and experimentation maturity were analysed. Stakeholder interviews across marketing and technology clarified operational and growth constraints.
Personas were refined to reflect real learner behaviour, especially mobile-first usage patterns.
Research insights were converted into actionable problem statements and framed as “How Might We” challenges. This ensured that strategy translated directly into design direction rather than surface updates.
Clarity came before creation.
Design
Build the foundation for coherence
The redesign focused on modernising the user experience, adopting a mobile-first approach, and updating the brand to reflect its identity as a digital school.
Mobile was not an adaptation. It was the foundation. The experience prioritised mobile applications for iOS and Android, enabling learners to take lessons anywhere. Web and app experiences were aligned under a unified design system.
A scalable component strategy was introduced, including a structured pattern library and documented style guide. This allowed markets to build landing pages and campaigns within consistent boundaries.
Accessibility-first design principles ensured inclusive learning experiences across devices and regions.
Rapid prototyping, usability testing, and embedded A/B experimentation validated decisions before scaling.
Consistency became deliberate. Performance became infrastructural.
Deploy
Systems only scale when teams can operate them
I led a cross-functional team across UX, UI, copy, and frontend development from research through to rollout. Brand principles were translated into reusable components and documented standards.
Technical delivery aligned with acquisition goals and mobile product priorities. Training, governance, and documentation enabled local markets to execute confidently within the shared framework.
The result was not central control. It was structured autonomy.
Optimisation became measurable. Mobile engagement strengthened. Brand coherence improved across web and app experiences.
Results
Delivering structural, operational, and commercial improvements across markets.
Delivering structural, operational, and commercial improvements across markets.
BRAND
Brand & Consistency
Unified global digital design system adopted across international markets
Increased cross-market brand consistency across web, landing pages, and email
Reduced visual and UX variation between regions
OPS
Efficiency & Scale
Reduced duplication in asset production through a shared component library
Accelerated campaign launch timelines through modular templates
Improved production efficiency across distributed teams
Strategic
Performance & Optimisation
Embedded A/B testing directly into the CMS, increasing experimentation maturity
Standardised optimisation practices across markets
Strengthened alignment between creative execution and acquisition KPIs
Improved mobile engagement following mobile-first redesign
Framework
Operational Maturity
Established governance framework for digital execution
Increased knowledge transfer between markets
Enabled structured autonomy without loss of brand integrity
I worked alongside Elizabeth for 2 years at EF Englishtown. She consistently produced high quality work and was pivotal in significant brand evolution. She was great at fomenting a collegial atmosphere within her team and was a definitely a highly valued member of the organization.
Kristin Price Kristin PVice President of Product @ Bōde 
Based in Manchester. Available worldwide.
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