Email UX · System Design · WCAG 2.2 · 2025
One language across every campaign.
Replacing six divergent one-off templates with a modular, accessible, and scalable email system — a shared language marketing and design could both work within.
The problem
No shared language. No design system. No coherence.
As Bendigo Bank's digital presence matured, email had not kept pace. Without a shared system, the customer journey between email and web felt disjointed, and maintaining consistency across touchpoints had become increasingly difficult.
Beyond inconsistency, the templates were visually outdated, relied on too many colours, failed accessibility contrast requirements, and had no connection to the evolving website design system. There was no shared token set, no reusable component logic, and no documentation. Every new campaign started from scratch.
My role
Audit to system, end-to-end.
- Audited all 6 existing templates — patterns, gaps, accessibility failures
- Benchmarked 12 industry leaders to inform system structure
- Defined 15 reusable block types across 5 base templates
- Established spacing, hierarchy, and content standards
- Applied WCAG 2.2 AA across all templates — colour contrast, alt text, structure
- Documented the system for marketing team handoff and ongoing governance
02 · The system
From audit to living library.
03 · Design principles
What the system stands for.
Modularity in action
15 block types that assemble into any campaign configuration without breaking consistency. Marketing can compose campaigns independently — the system does the governance work so designers don't have to police every send.
Accessibility first
WCAG 2.2 AA compliance built in from the start — not retrofitted. Colour contrast ratios, semantic structure, alt text requirements, and focus order all defined at the system level so individual templates inherit compliance automatically.
Brand coherence
The system maps directly to Bendigo's design tokens — the same colour, type, and spacing decisions made once and propagated everywhere. An email feels like the app because it uses the same DNA.
04 · Outcomes
Consistency at scale.
- Unified layout and structure across all templates — a single coherent system replacing six divergent one-offs
- Clearer hierarchy supporting quick scanning — customers find what they need faster across every campaign type
- Faster, more consistent template creation — teams assemble campaigns from existing blocks without starting from scratch
- Component-based system enabling easy A/B testing — swap individual blocks without rebuilding the full template
- Scalable foundation for future refreshes — token-based design means brand updates propagate across all templates instantly
Improvements
- Improved readability through considered typography and generous, consistent spacing across all templates
- Accessibility compliance across all templates — WCAG 2.2 AA met for colour contrast, semantic structure, and alt text
- SEO-optimised HTML structure throughout — correct heading hierarchy, meaningful link text, and clean markup
05 · Why it matters
Email is a trust channel.
A poorly designed email from your bank isn't just bad UX — it's a broken moment in an important relationship.
Every email is a brand moment
- Consistency builds trustWhen every touchpoint looks and sounds like Bendigo, customers feel the bank is coherent and considered — not fragmented and careless.
- Accessibility is inclusionAn email that fails WCAG excludes customers with visual impairments, cognitive differences, or assistive technology. That's a choice we no longer make.
Systems scale, opinions don't
- Speed at scaleThe system lets a team of two produce campaign-quality emails without design review — because the decisions were made once, correctly, upfront.
- Governance built inYou can't make an inaccessible or off-brand email if the blocks don't support it. Compliance stops being a checklist and becomes structural.
"The best design systems are invisible to the people using them. They just find themselves doing the right thing — without knowing why it felt so easy." — Esha Patel
One system. Every campaign.
The system didn't just fix the templates — it gave the team a shared language for thinking about communication, consistency, and quality.