Examine.com

The problem

Examine.com is one of the internet’s most trusted independent sources on nutrition and supplement research, a site whose entire product is scientific credibility. By the time I got involved, the design no longer matched the caliber of the content: the research was rigorous, the presentation was dated. For a reference site with an established readership and a dense, information-heavy catalog of pages, a redesign is a high-stakes move: it has to modernize the look without breaking the trust and usability that readers came for.

Examine had a strong in-house backend team, but design and front-end for an overhaul of this size wasn’t their muscle. They needed someone to own that side end to end.

The approach

I led the design and development of the new site design, and put together the team to deliver it: designers and front-end developers working as one unit, with me directing both tracks.

The engagement was structured as a clean division of labor: our team owned the new design and its front-end implementation, and Examine’s backend team integrated our work into their platform. That handoff seam only works if the front-end is delivered production-ready and the collaboration is tight, so I worked closely with the founder on direction, with management on priorities, and with their developers on making integration smooth rather than a second project.

The outcome

The new design shipped: a modern presentation that brought the site’s look in line with the quality of its research, delivered as front-end their team could integrate directly. The project ran across two years of collaboration with the founder and his team, on a site read by millions of people making health decisions.