The Reeve Foundation redesign was more than a website update. It was a chance to rethink how a mission-driven organization shows up in the world, tells its story, and serves its community. As Creative and Strategy Lead at XDS, I led the engagement from RFP to relaunch, guiding a cross-disciplinary team through a rigorous, human-centered process.
In this case study, I want to take you behind the curtain. Not just to show the end result, but to walk you through the entire process we follow at XDS from the first brief to the final module. This means showing the real steps, the artifacts, the decisions, and the conversations that shaped the work. Just the full arc of a design system built with purpose, empathy, and precision.
The RFP from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation came with a clear mandate: redesign our website to better reflect who we are, make critical content more accessible, and improve the experience for all our users with a core focus the paralysis community.
But under that ask was a deeper opportunity. To reimagine not just how the site looked and functioned, but how it served. How it told human stories, connected audiences, and honored the legacy of the Reeve family while moving boldly into the future.
Before we moved a single pixel, we focused on understanding the people we were designing for. At XDS, we believe that great design starts with deep listening. That means getting past assumptions and uncovering real human needs, motivations, and pain points. We kicked off with a UX research phase that was both broad and intentional. Our goal: to understand the lived experiences of our core audiences and how they engaged (or struggled to engage) with the current Reeve Foundation site.
Stakeholder Interviews We spoke with team leads across communications, research, development, programs, and leadership to understand internal goals, organizational challenges, and future vision. These conversations surfaced critical insights about content ownership, branding gaps, and unmet user needs.
Audience Interviews We conducted video interviews with a range of community members including individuals living with paralysis, caregivers, advocates, clinicians, researchers, and donors. These conversations gave us a 360-degree view of what users needed, what they couldn’t find, and what moments mattered most.
Behavioral Personas Rather than rely on demographic personas, we created behavior-based archetypes rooted in real user attitudes, goals, and contexts. For example:
This research gave us a clear mandate: simplify, clarify, and humanize the experience. It also gave us permission to challenge existing structures and reframe the site as more than an information hub as a living support system for a deeply engaged, emotionally invested community.
To design a system that works, you first have to understand what you’re working with. Before jumping into sitemaps or wireframes, we rolled up our sleeves and got methodical.
We audited every inch of the existing Reeve Foundation website. Every page, every link, every piece of content. Our goal was to create a complete inventory and assess what to keep, what to remove, and what to completely rethink.
This audit gave us the clarity and direction we needed. It became the foundation for a smarter, more intentional content strategy. It also gave the design team the context to build a system that supported real people, not just organizational structure.
The sitemap and wireframes emerged from real user tasks. We structured the site to reduce friction and improve wayfinding, but also to highlight key narratives and programs. Accessibility, SEO, and cross-device fluidity were foundational.
With structure in place, we shifted into storytelling. This meant defining a content strategy that could unify tone, simplify complexity, and bring forward authentic voices. From headlines to CTAs to long-form content, we wrote and edited with purpose.
With a clear content strategy and structure in place, we turned our focus to bringing the brand to life visually. This wasn’t about just refreshing the look. It was about designing a system that could express the Reeve Foundation’s values — hope, action, resilience, and community — across every touchpoint and screen size.
We knew we weren’t designing for a single moment. We were building a living, breathing system that could grow with the organization and respond to the real needs of its audiences.
We started by creating a range of visual directions, each grounded in strategic themes uncovered during our research. These early explorations allowed us to test different tonal approaches and push the edges of the brand expression, without losing sight of clarity and accessibility.
This phase was about more than aesthetics. It was about honoring the weight of the mission while creating a digital space that felt empowering, uplifting, and deeply human. The final design didn’t just look better — it worked better. It helped people find what they needed faster, trust what they were reading, and feel more connected to the cause.
Before anything went into code, we made sure everything was ready for scale. At XDS, we don’t just design pages — we design systems. And that means giving developers what they need to bring the experience to life accurately, efficiently, and sustainably.
Once the full visual design was complete, we shifted into what we call the production design phase. This is where we translate creative decisions into a fully documented, modular system that developers can trust and build on long after launch.
Leading the Reeve Foundation website redesign was a powerful reminder of why we do this work. It wasn’t just about solving usability issues or updating a visual system. It was about translating a mission into a digital experience that feels honest, accessible, and empowering. The goal was to support a community that deserves to be seen, heard, and helped at every step. From the first interview to the final handoff, we designed with intention and empathy. We built not just a website, but a flexible system the Foundation can evolve with. This project reflects the kind of work we strive for at XDS. It is grounded in insight, crafted with care, and built to create real impact.
The Experience Design Studio is an award-winning digitally native customer experience agency founded in 2017 by two agency veterans, bringing their collective creative, user experience, marketing, technology, and healthcare expertise together.
XDS is a full-service digital agency providing strategy to creation, consulting, design, engineering, marketing, and analytics, with the aim of providing seamless DTC and B2B experiences across all digital touch points, with common sense sprinkled in.