Strategic Architecture
Helping solve a critical enterprise architecture gap before a major customer decision.
Role: Senior UX Designer
Team: Product, Engineering
Platform: Enterprise Saas
Focus: Content Architecture
Global Modular Blocks
Contentstack offered powerful capabilities for enterprise content modeling. Global Fields provided reusable structures, while Modular Blocks enabled flexibility and composition.
The challenge was connecting these systems without compromising long term product integrity. The work focused on balancing enterprise flexibility, system trust, and business needs during a high stakes customer moment.
Modular Blocks & Global Fields Logic
Modular blocks logic
Global fields logic
Why this mattered
Twenty four hours before a major enterprise call, the pressure was unusually high. Johnson and Johnson was evaluating whether Contentstack could support the kind of scalable content architecture they needed. This was not a routine customer conversation. Competitors were already in the race, and while Contentstack had strong building blocks, two of its most powerful systems did not connect in the way the customer needed.
The problem
Contentstack had Global Fields, which helped teams create reusable structures, and Modular Blocks, which gave them flexible content modeling. Both were strong independently. But if a customer wanted to use a reusable structure inside a Modular Block, they had to rebuild it manually. At enterprise scale, that created duplication, inconsistency, and governance risk.
Key Challenges:
Scaling content models across enterprise use cases
Reducing duplication through reusable structures
Maintaining governance without limiting flexibility
Creating an architecture that supports long-term growth
How Modular Blocks and Global Fields worked before nesting
Content modelling screen with modular blocks.
Entry editor with modular blocks.
Global field configuration screen.
Content modelling screen with standalone global field.
The tension
The fastest solution would have been to force a workaround by converting structures dynamically. It may have helped the immediate pitch, but it would have made the product harder to trust later. I pushed against solving only for the demo because the system needed a clean source of truth..
What we did
We moved toward a Reference First approach. Instead of duplicating or converting structures unpredictably, users could create a Global Field once and reference it inside Modular Blocks wherever needed. This preserved structure, flexibility, and long term maintainability..
Key Contributions:
Designed scalable and reusable content structures
Simplified complex content modelling workflows
Balanced governance with authoring flexibility
Contributed to securing a major enterprise customer through strategic architecture
Connecting Global Fields and Modular Blocks
Exploring a scalable nesting approach.
My role
I helped shape the interaction direction, challenged the quick workaround, and focused the solution around system integrity rather than short term presentation value.
Outcome
The solution helped demonstrate that Contentstack could support enterprise grade architecture for one of the biggest global brands. It became a strong example of how product architecture can influence customer confidence and business trust.
Impact:
Supported enterprise-scale content modelling
Reduced duplication through reusable structures
Improved content governance and flexibility
Contributed to securing the Johnson & Johnson enterprise deal
Final Designs
Global field structure definition.
Adding a global field within content modelling.
Global field list modal for selecting reusable fields.
Global field nested inside a modular block.
Played a key role in unblocking a critical requirement that contributed to the successful closure of a major enterprise deal.
What I would do differently today
Today, I would use AI assisted systems mapping to explore multiple architectural directions faster before stakeholder review. But I would still protect the same principle. Short term fixes should never weaken long term product trust.
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