Design Process Problems

Is your organization experiencing growing pains? Need help streamlining or shepherding the design process, but don’t have enough momentum to hire a program manager? This is where I come in: setting up foundations and frameworks to scale, as well as socializing and centralizing operational efforts. I don’t just invite people to the table, I build the table for people to break bread together.

Amazon / Sr UX Program Manager & Lead UX Designer / Mar 2019 - Mar 2020

Product problem: Roll out a new design system while introducing a new technical framework to thousands of employees.

Team problem: Get said employees with a very limited attention capacity to slow down and learn.

Every time a new Alexa device was invented, it came with a new operating system and design requirements, quickly becoming unscalable. In response, our team devised the Alexa Design System, revolutionizing experience creation to simplify how visual experiences were created and implemented. Getting the enterprise to adopt this required strategic educational resources which I created:

  • Roadshow for engineers and product managers

  • Ethnographic study to tailor resources

  • Launching internal and external design guides

  • System to track design team adoption

This effort not only succeeded in streamlining the design process but also eventually allowed for a self-sustaining system of support.

Onboarding thousands of employees into new design system framework

PwC / Digital Products / Lead UX Researcher / Aug 2022 - May 2023

Product problem: Struggling to get effective user feedback due to lack of research participants.

Team problem: The UX team was losing trust and credibility by reusing the same research participants who were feeling burned out.

Upon joining a brand new UX research team, I quickly realized that recruiting and managing participants was a major challenge to the product and design teams, who were struggling to obtain relevant customer insights. Our product's nature limited us to internal participants, however the team had been gathering feedback from the same 20 employees. Not only were these employees starting to feel burned out, but the larger org was missing out on valuable insights because they weren’t reaching the right people. To address this, I looked for ways to expand the participant pool and streamlined participant management. First, I collaborated with the internal customer success team to incorporate recruitment details into their training materials. Then established a baseline of participant demographics needed across teams to be able to better select research participants. Finally, I proposed using Airtable for its robust database management and simple user experience as the ideal platform for the team. While my contract ended before it was adopted, I was able to establish a handoff plan for its future implementation.

User research recruitment for non-researchers

Product problem: Innovation is down, limited vision, too many possibilities.

Team problem: Prioritizing time and facilitating a collaborative environment is hard work

  • Dash Replenishment Service: Designed and ran a 2-day workshop to align product team on partner onboarding process, bottlenecks, and generate near- and long-term solutions

  • Alexa: Futuristic ideation session on possibilities for Alexa, design sprints for new programs.

  • Startup Weekend: I’ve run a handful of weekend events to give people access to entrepreneurship.

  • Storybrand coaching: I’m not a certified coach, but I absolutely love this framework and have used it in several workshops to clarify messaging.

  • UP Global (later Techstars): My friend, Bryan, and I developed a workshop game called “Possibilities to Priorities” to help develop roadmaps for product and engineering teams.

I’ve also run numerous design sprints, creative ideation, and creative workshops for companies such as Coforma, Zillow, and Amazon.

Workshop design for everyone

Bonus: Meeting Design Skills

This is a highly undervalued skillset, but I know how to design a great meeting and have consistently received feedback on how effective my meetings are. Participants arrive with clarity about what’s to be achieved, honored for their time and input, and leave with clear next steps.

Additionally, I learned from my deaf and neurodivergent coworkers on how to design accessible meetings. I’m honored to be known as an ally who creates collaborative contexts for people’s unique needs and contributions.