markup Rebuilt
107% Increase in visitor adoption within first 30 days
Modern markup — built for modern teams.
Objective
Annotations were one of Design Pickle’s most relied-on features, supporting the majority of creative reviews.
74% of all requests use annotations, underscoring the need for a more modern, reliable proofing experience.
The objective was to reimagine the annotation system into a scalable, intuitive, and consistent tool that improved clarity, accelerated review cycles, and strengthened platform engagement.
Problem
Despite its importance in the creative workflow, Design Pickle’s legacy annotation system was built on outdated technology that limited markup options, behaved inconsistently across asset types, and lacked the flexibility required for modern feedback.
1. Draw a square around the area needing feedback
2. Type a comment in the directions panel
As workarounds became common, users increasingly left the platform to provide direction — exporting assets, annotating externally, and re-uploading screenshots. This resulted in unclear feedback, inconsistent quality, and longer turnaround times.
Across Q2 and Q3, we reviewed over 300 customer feedback submissions, and approximately 15% specifically referenced challenges with annotations — reinforcing that the experience was a meaningful source of friction.
To support Design Pickle’s shift toward platform-driven value and deeper engagement, the annotation experience needed to evolve. Customers expected modern, intuitive proofing tools comparable to industry standards — and without them, engagement and retention suffered.
Research & Insights
User research and platform analytics provided a deeper look at how annotations were being used — and where the experience broke down. The data showed that annotations were not just popular; they were mission-critical to the creative workflow.
The feature appeared in 74% of all requests, driving 15,000+ monthly interactions, placing it in the top tier of platform engagement.
ANNOTATIONS FEATURE
74%
of all requests use annotations
15,000+
monthly interactions
top 3
most-used feature on the platform
However, deeper behavioral patterns and user feedback revealed that high usage wasn’t translating into efficiency.
Designers frequently received assets that had been marked up externally, forcing additional steps and complicating version tracking.
Customer Success flagged annotation confusion as a common driver of user experience issues and back-and-forth revisions, increasing overall turnaround time — a number one cited factor in overall customer churn.
Competitive analysis reinforced these gaps. Modern proofing platforms offered richer markup systems and consistent interactions across formats — capabilities missing from Design Pickle’s legacy framework.
A deeper review of our feedback portal showed that roughly 15% of all submissions referenced annotation friction — from limited tools to inconsistent behavior across asset types.
Together, these insights made the opportunity clear: users needed a modern, unified annotation experience with intuitive tools, predictable behavior, and a modern, in-platform proofing solution that finally matched the way creative teams work today.
Solution
Instead of rebuilding the annotation system from scratch, we took a strategic approach that focused on time to value — adopt a modern, proven canvas engine and layer a fully custom UI on top.
This allowed us to deliver a faster, more stable, and more intuitive annotation experience — without the long development cycles of a full rewrite — while keeping the interface visually and behaviorally consistent with the rest of the platform.
FABRIC.JS
Fabric.js provided out-of-the-box support for the essential interactions users expect from modern proofing tools — drag, resize, rotate, edit-in-place — giving us a reliable technical foundation to build on.
This approach enabled:
Faster time to value by leveraging a mature, well-supported library
Marketplace-standard interactions users already understood
More engineering focus on UX quality, stability, and consistency, rather than low-level tooling
CUSTOM UI
We designed and implemented a frontend UI that matches Design Pickle’s updated visual language — ensuring annotations felt native, not bolted on.
The custom interface delivered:
A simplified, modern toolbar
Clear interaction cues and affordances
Unified behaviors across all asset types (static, video, presentations, multi-page, etc.)
ASSET CONSISTENCY
One of the biggest user pain points in the legacy system was behavioral inconsistency — different tools, different rules, different limitations depending on the file format.
The new system eliminated those seams.
Whether a user was annotating a JPG, a PDF, a presentation, or a video frame, the experience now feels:
Predictable
Consistent
Stable
Familiar
This dramatically reduced friction and eliminated the cognitive load of relearning tools across workflows.
FUTURE FOUNDATION
By modernizing the annotation layer — rather than reinventing it — we delivered:
More stability for one of the platform’s most-used features
Faster, clearer review cycles
A scalable foundation for future enhancements
1. Select a tool
2. Mark up your asset
3. Add comments & threads
Data & Outcomes
Following the rollout of the new annotation system, engagement and adoption increased across every major usage metric — validating both the need for modernization and the effectiveness of the solution.
USAGE IN FIRST 30 DAYS
18.4k
feature clicks (+200%)
559
unique accounts engaged (+76%)
840
unique visitors (+105%)
56%
account adoption (+70%)
The redesigned experience sparked a significant increase in platform activity. Feature clicks grew sharply, indicating not just curiosity but deeper, repeated interactions as users moved through more annotation actions per session.
Adoption also rose across both new and returning customers — re-engaging long-time users while making it easier for new accounts to get started. Collectively, these results show that the new annotation system immediately boosted engagement, improved interaction quality, and strengthened platform value.