The shift from Sitecore to Optimizely.
Deltek's original site ran on Sitecore, and the marketing team felt boxed in: publishing was slow due to a difficult-to-manage folder structure, which prevented them from easily building the kind of connected content hubs they wanted. In other words, building an experience where an industry page leads naturally to the right products, articles, and customer stories was going to take a lot more than a simple visual refresh.
This is where Optimizely came in. The deeper focus for Deltek’s new site was a content model and a platform that could flex to the way Deltek organizes information: pages that assemble from reusable blocks, content that connects across industries and audiences, and an editing experience the team could move quickly in. With key stakeholders having already worked with Blend and Optimizely, the partnership seemed like an obvious choice.
Before any design work, Blend led Deltek through a full discovery and strategy process — using stakeholder interviews and a full discovery workshop to help fuel a new site map and content model that worked for Deltek’s goals and audiences while navigating through common pain points. Wireframes helped make structural decisions before anyone argued about color, and a technical plan kept the team aligned from the first weeks to the last.
Designing for many audiences at once, including Deltek itself.
Deltek’s new design set out to give each audience a clear path without splintering the site into disconnected corners. An audience picker on the homepage helps visitors self-select into the content built for them, while a restructured resource center pulls articles, videos, events, customer stories, and partner listings into feeds that connect back to the products and industries they support.
Throughout, Blend worked iteratively — presenting variations of key components and refining with Deltek's feedback rather than delivering finished comps all at once. Blend then handled the full front-end and back-end build on Optimizely CMS 12, developing a deep library of reusable blocks so editors can assemble pages without custom development. The build followed development best practices and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards, with automated migration to move structured content like articles and resources, plus integrations for forms, privacy compliance, and search.
Just as important as the code was the handoff. Blend trained Deltek's editors on their own instance as templates were completed, so the team was ready to run the site the day it launched.
From the first discovery workshop through launch, the same Blend team led strategy, design, and development. That continuity meant the decisions made in discovery carried through to the build, and the editors who trained on the site were learning it from the people who designed and built it.
