ADR-001: UK Website V2 Release Strategy

• Status: Accepted
• Date: 23rd January 2026
• Participants: Mason Soiza, Ollie Soar, Jon Dunn, Warren Challenger, Ian Lovell

Scope

UK V2 involves a combination of content, design, and feature work:

• Marketing pages: Home, About, Releaf+, Blog etc
• Design system components: Form, navigation, typography, layout primitives etc
• New sign-up flow: Eligibility and conversion improvements
• Initial Consultation (IC) work
• Repeat subscription flow
• Admin site improvements
• Other improvements: Analytics tracking, SEO optimisations, CMS migration (Dato → Sanity), testing infrastructure, dependency updates etc

This represents a site-wide change with implications for:

• Brand consistency
• SEO
• Analytics and conversion measurement
• Delivery risk and engineering complexity

Options

Option A - Full Cutover

Description

Build the entire V2 site in parallel and switch all traffic to it in a single release once complete.

Note: New site could initially run on /v2 routes with restricted access until cutover.

Pros

• Complete visual and brand consistency at launch
• Clear “before vs after” moment
• No mixed V1 / V2 experiences for users
• Simpler mental model for design sign-off

Cons

• High delivery risk at cutover (site-wide regressions)
• Limited ability to measure impact per section
• SEO risk concentrated in a single release
• Harder to adapt to late design or scope changes
• Longer time before users see any improvements
• Greater engineering pressure around freezes, merges, and fixes

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Option B - Incremental Delivery with Foundation Alignment

Description

Modernise shared foundations first, then release rebuilt sections incrementally while maintaining visual consistency.

Example Sequence

1. Update global foundations on the existing site:
   • Typography
   • Buttons
   • Header / footer
   • Core layout primitives
2. Deliver rebuilt sections incrementally:
   • About
   • Home
   • Signup
   • IC
   • Repeat flow
   • Other priority sections
3. Continue refining designs and CMS migration in parallel.

Pros

• Maintains reasonable brand consistency once foundations are updated
• Reduces delivery and regression risk
• Allows SEO and analytics impact to be measured per section
• Enables continuous delivery of value
• Better accommodates evolving designs and priorities
• Lower operational risk for engineering
• Reduces risk of major unexplained conversion rate changes by avoiding high-risk “big impact launch”
• Quick remediation of issues like SEO drops or traffic problems
• Ability to identify what caused any impact to conversion or traffic
• More resilient to new business priorities that may interrupt work

Cons

• Requires careful sequencing of foundational changes
• Short-term period where layout / IA may vary by section
• More coordination required between design and delivery
• Designs are primarily delivered as a full-site redesign rather than incremental states, making section-by-section QA and testing more complex
• Temporary use of two different CMS systems (existing DatoCMS and Sanity) to manage different sections of the marketing pages
• Content management complexity - risk of contradictions between old and new CMS, especially as offerings and policies change
• Requires diligence to ensure consistency between new and old content for an extended period
• SEO implications from creating new pages incrementally
• Overhead attributing conversion rate changes due to external factors (marketing campaigns, payday weeks, etc.)

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Option C - Hybrid: Marketing Pages Cutover + Incremental Releases

Description

Deliver marketing pages (highly visible patient-facing content) in a single cutover to protect brand consistency and trust, while releasing other items (sign-up flow, IC work, repeat subscription flow, admin improvements etc) incrementally.

Note that marketing pages could initially run on /v2 routes until the cutover is complete.

Example Sequence

1. Marketing pages cutover:
   • Home, About, Releaf+, Blog etc updated to new designs
   • Full visual consistency and sitemap updates applied at once
   • Design system components built in parallel
   • Move from DatoCMS to Sanity
   • Review analytics implementation
2. Incremental releases for other items:
   • Sign-up flow
   • IC work
   • Repeat subscription flow
   • Admin site improvements

Pros

• Protects brand consistency and patient trust on high-visibility pages
• Reduces delivery risk for the rest of the scope via incremental releases
• Enables measurable impact per functional area
• Supports continuous delivery without waiting for the entire site to be complete
• Allows design system and foundational work to evolve in parallel
• Single CMS cutover simplifies content management
• Simpler brand consistency as all marketing pages launch together

Cons

• Requires careful sequencing of marketing page cutover vs incremental work
• Some mixed experiences may exist temporarily for non-marketing areas
• Coordination required to ensure incremental updates don’t break marketing pages
• QA/testing effort still significant due to partial cutover
• Marketing pages launch may be delayed if priorities change or dependencies shift
• Marketing pages are still in flux and designs and requirements are not fully finalised, which increases uncertainty
• Marketing pages only deliver value at the end of the work, not incrementally
• Higher risk of significant conversion rate drop if issues exist in the marketing pages launch
• More difficult to identify root cause of conversion issues if multiple pages launch together
• Any marketing page scope changes or new business priorities are likely to interrupt work and cause delays
• Timeline uncertainty due to potential scope changes and new priorities

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Decision (Accepted)

Proceed with Option B - Incremental Delivery with Foundation Alignment.

This approach reduces the risk of major unexplained conversion rate changes by avoiding high-risk “big impact launches” and enables quick remediation of any issues. While it introduces complexity around design and content management, temporary use of two CMS systems, and potential brand consistency challenges, these will be mitigated through early foundational alignment work (typography, layout primitives, buttons, header/footer) and clear process. The ability to identify what caused any conversion or traffic impacts, combined with incremental value delivery, outweighs these concerns.

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Rationale

• Reduces risk of major unexplained conversion rate changes by limiting scope of each release
• Enables quick identification and remediation of issues (SEO, traffic, conversion)
• Delivers value incrementally rather than waiting for all marketing pages to be complete
• More resilient to inevitable business priority changes that may interrupt work
• Allows for baseline metric comparison and targeted improvements
• Despite content management complexity and dual CMS challenges, the conversion risk reduction is worth the trade-off
• External factors (marketing campaigns, payday weeks) will affect analytics, but Option B provides clearer attribution of impacts

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Next Steps

• Update global foundations on the existing site (typography, buttons, header/footer, core layout primitives)
• Define and prioritize the sequence of incremental section releases (e.g., About, Home, Signup, IC, Repeat flow)
• Establish processes for managing content consistency between existing CMS and Sanity during transition period
• Set up monitoring and baseline metrics for conversion rate, SEO, and traffic to measure impact of each release
• Define testing duration and thresholds for determining when to remediate or roll back changes
• Track progress under a single UK V2 initiative with section-level projects
• Revisit the strategy if constraints or priorities change