Damian Martelli
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Relume Publish editor

I designed how people select, edit and swap components in Relume Publish, so a powerful component system feels simple, even for people who've never used a design tool.

  • Interaction design
  • Editor UI
  • Usability testing
  • Shipped
Role
Lead Product Designer
Company
Relume
Team
Component, platform experience and editor teams
Year
2026
A website open in the Relume Publish editor, with the layers panel, replace popover and properties panel floating around it

The problem

Relume Export, the product before Relume Publish, had very limited editing controls. Our new component system changed what was possible. It’s built from the smallest elements up to whole sections, all reused and composed.

That power came with a new way of thinking about a website builder. The editor had to help people understand:

  • The rails. Components are relatively locked down.
  • Why the rails exist. Those limits are what make building fast and cut down the decisions people have to make.
  • The building blocks. What components, slots and lists are, which parts are editable, and how each one behaves.

And it all had to feel simple for people with no experience in design tools.

My role

The editor was a collaboration across several teams. As lead of the component team, I owned the experience of working with components:

  • On-canvas selection
  • The properties panel, which shows a selected component’s settings
  • The layers panel, for navigating and selecting

That work crossed over with our platform experience and editor teams, who designed the brief, sitemap, publishing and site settings. We worked closely to keep the editor consistent.

Approach

Make the system legible

People need to know what they’ve selected and what it’s made of. The editor makes each component distinct, and shows exactly what’s editable on it.

Group properties by what they do

A component’s properties fall into three kinds, and the properties panel presents them that way:

  • Layout, which controls how the component is arranged
  • Style, which controls how it looks
  • Behaviour, which controls how it acts and animates

The layers panel, the replace popover and the properties panel for a selected Hero Media component.

Show what can change, and how

Each concept in the system behaves differently, so the editor communicates each one clearly:

  • Components can be swapped for any other component that fits.
  • Slots let people swap the content within a section.
  • Lists are areas where people can freely add and remove items.

Replacing a component in the Design view, with the options that fit its slot.

Outcome

In user testing, real users understood the system and successfully built out their websites, and the feedback on how intuitive the editor felt was positive. More than 2,000 websites went live on Relume Publish within two weeks of launch.