Redesigning the Nucleus Awards Platform – Case Study
Redesigning the Nucleus Awards Platform – Case Study
BAFTA’s Nucleus platform has powered awards entries and judging for over a decade — but by 2021, its interface was showing its age. Although robust and feature-rich under the hood, the system’s outdated design was beginning to undermine its usability, accessibility, and appeal to prospective clients. As Product Manager, I led the transformation of Nucleus into a fully responsive, accessible, and modern platform that retained its core functionality while introducing a dramatically improved user experience.
The redesign prioritised the most widely used areas of the platform the Entrant and Viewer interfaces, while laying the groundwork for future admin enhancements. Through careful mapping of legacy workflows, collaborative design with RF Media, and methodical front-end refactoring using Bootstrap, we modernised the product without destabilising the live codebase. The result was a clean, mobile-friendly UI with better accessibility, clearer dashboards, and new admin controls for branding allowing clients to manage their own themes without developer support.
By rolling out the changes incrementally and maintaining tight feedback loops with stakeholders, we ensured smooth adoption across multiple BAFTA instances. The redesign also enabled us to move faster with future feature releases in 2023 and 2024. With this project, Nucleus regained its competitive edge matching its technical sophistication with a user experience that feels modern, intuitive, and inclusive.
